Fire! Volunteer?

[txdon]

Any Volunteer Firefighters in rural areas find themselves alone? Today was one of those days. I was in the county and could respond to the VFD page.
I was the only one.
35 minutes after being dispatch I arrived on location it was comforting to see the mutual aid was available and responded from the next town and was in my FD truck rear view mirror as I pulled in the gate. A resident fighting the grass fire with a shovel was recruited to squirt water. This time it was only a grass fire and the next town's mutual aid was available.
It still has me thinking about the what ifs.

 

[KennethBrown]

Been a vol ff for several years but have never been availeable when paged out. Working for the SO I was the first on the scene of lots of fires. The FD's would show up and I was out in the middle of it beating away.

 

[WTA]

I was a volunteer once. Would probably never do it again for exactly the reason you are talking about. I responded to all of my pages! I lost count of how many times I was the only one. I was fairly experienced as a navy firefighter and went to all the schools and was in charge of repair parties and hose teams whenever we had fires aboard ship. It was a lot easier putting the fire out with a little help.
I really hate dragging a 2 1/2 inch hose around by myself!

I'm my own firefighter here. Our volunteer department is always unavailable. Or passed out drunk from what I hear. I set up all of my own firefighting equipment around the house and shop and will just take care of fires on my own. Hopefully I will never have to though. We have had one small electrical fire in a breaker box but that was easy and no real damage was done. I got lucky.

 

[grnspot110]

I spent 29 years (now retired) on a small paid department in a rural area. We always had to depend on vol. in & out of town. When a rural department was set up several years ago the city firmen no longer responded to rural calls except mutual aid. Over the years the "new" wore off the rural dept. & fewer members would respond until a District was started, then things improved.

Part of the problem small businesses can't afford to let thier employees loose to respond and the bigger employers usually 'won't'. There also seems to be a lack of personal responsibility in this day & age, "let sombody else do it" (not just in the Fire Service).

I'm afraid this will get to be a bigger problem as time goes by!~~grnspot110

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I live in a farming community and most of the firemen are local farmers so when I fell it didn't take long for them to arrive. The funny thing was the first guy on scene was from an emergency squad 15-20 miles away. He was running a delivery truck for a lumber yard and was near us when the call went out.

They have a good system here, from the initial call they dispatched the emergency department from both local towns as I was in both territories and they dispatched the helicopter at the same time because of the distance I fell. By the time they had me on the board the helicopter was coming in to land. I know it felt like an eternity while I was laid out on the ground but it really wasn't that long.

I am thankful for the Volunteers who serve our community as well as all the volunteers across our country.

 

[RobertN]

I have volunteered locally since '99. Worked part time for a little while at first.

Within the local area, there is pretty fast reponse by a mix of paid and volunteer firefighters. The majority of Station in our area, both my district and the surrounding district, are staffed full time. In my position, we staff a second out engine if our staffed engine goes out.

If our staffed engine goes out on a fire or accident in our diestrict, we will staff a second engine and respond. If it is out of our district, we will staff, and respond if dispatch requests, or cover our district.

I've been on engines and water tenders where we moved and covered stations in other disrtict, because the whole area was stripped of engines.

I don't leave work for a call, partly because I am so far away. And, my pager does not work inside the building I work at. My manager knows though, and if something big comes up, I'll go. A bunch of us volunteers do the old fashioned phone tree to see who is gonna make in after a page goes out...

Although it is very hard for some small businesses to lose folks off to a fire, and some big ones don't like it either, there are state and federal mandates that protect volunteer firefighters and volunteer medics.

I have been asked to go on Southern Cal strike teams, but have not had the opportunity due to work constraints. I want to though. Some of our crews have been in the middle of some big fires.

for response times, there are some outlying area's not too far from us, where the people have some long response times. There are just not that many people out there, and no engine's nearby.

It is hard now days to find volunteers. Our academy starts in a couple weeks. It is a couple nights a week for six months, 2 months of saturdays doing manipulative drills, and then additional time in your home station doing training specific to the engine you'll respond on. This, is on top of minimum First Responder medical certifications(will probably be minimum EMT soon). That's a lot of training commitment before you even get on an engine.

 

[tommu56]

I was a volunteer for about 25 years and was the chief engineer for about 15 (in charge of the trucks repairs and operation).
After 2- 3 nighs a week for those years I just got burnt out and passed the baton on to the younger guys .

tom

 

[Rara Avis]

Been in the game since 1979...started as a vollie with Bethesda-Chevy Chase and am now with Williston FD and am now Paid-Call...Currently, we finally have 4 paid full timers who are divided up over the 24x7 week...along with a new sleep-over program which is supplemented by our 2 Technical College students living in the station so the first truck out on all fire/med calls has at least 4 people...so the response to the station is a bit more relaxed these days...

But there have been calls in the past that could have been exciting, if not for our common dispatch system and excellent automatic mutual aid dispatching for certain calls...

 

[MossRoad]

To all of you who give or yourself....

Our volunteers where I live are outstanding. So are the paid people. We are very fortunate to have people like you that care. Thanks.

 

[dooleysm]

Around here when a call goes out it is answered by a bunch of guys of all different ages. It seems like everyone is a volunteer firefighter around us. I work about 35 miles from home, so I'm not a volunteer, but I sure appreciate what these guys do. They take it seriously, but I know they have alot of fun with it too.

 

[firemanpat2910]

been on the VFD since 1987. Ive been to countless calls by my self, or short handed. It seems to be getting harder to find new vollies. and then when you finaly get some young guy interested you tell him hes got to sit through 180 hrs of training.(if youre lucky he will stick around) Back in the day we jumped on the tail board and skeeted water, then went home.

 

[txdon]

"Back in the day we jumped on the tail board and skeeted water, then went home." - firemanpat 2910

We are in that day but we have no tail boards, just pickups with water tanks!

Thanks for the replies so far. It's interesting to see how different communities handle their fire service. There is no paid FD in this or surrounding counties. In our immediate area there are no business, so our weakest time is during the work week.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I find the timing of this post ironic. My family's house burned down a week ago today. We lost almost everything. Our dog didn't make it out. We still have our health. The fire departments around here are strictly volunteer. They were the most outstanding, professional, courteous firemen I have ever seen. While most of the guys were fighting the fire on one side of the house, a couple others went in through our bedroom window and asked what they could get out. They got most of the family photos and movies and most of my weapons. My family owes a great deal of gratitude to these men. The fire chief even went in and took the kids drawings off of the refrigerator.

I wholeheartedly ask any of you out there that feel alone on your fire department to please stick with it. There are many people out there that depend on you. My wife is an EMT so we do our part. And thank-you to all you guys and gals that volunteer. You are truly special people, Andy.

 

[tommu56]

"Back in the day we jumped on the tail board and skeeted water, then went home." - firemanpat 2910

We are in that day but we have no tail boards, just pickups with water tanks!

Thanks for the replies so far. It's interesting to see how different communities handle their fire service. There is no paid FD in this or surrounding counties. In our immediate area there are no business, so our weakest time is during the work week.

We had an issue with manpower during the day too with one dept that I ran with we conclude to get a pumper tanker. A full class a pumper with a 2500 gallon tank then with 4 people you could do alot and not have to have some one else bring another truck for water.

tom

 

[dmccarty]

Our part of the county is covered by VFD and some city FDs. One VFD just got bounced from getting county money since they did not have the people to answer calls. I forgot the percentage of calls they answered but it was low.

Where I work, there is a LARGE VFD down the street but the city has grown this way and their FD just build a station nearby. Another little "town" I drive through has a local VFD but another city has take over the community and build a FD right next to the VFD. In both cases I'm not sure who handles what calls.

I know if some VFDs around here there are paid firefighters always on duty at the station to make sure they can answer calls. Not sure how common that is around here though.

When this thread started this week, I got home and had an issue of Progressive Farmer in the mail with an article about VFDs. The story is just repeating much of what has been said here regarding staffing issues, training, lack of time to volunteer, and people not working locally anymore.

I'm still surprised when I drive to work to see how many people are up early going to work in the "city."

Later,
Dan

 

[txdon]

When this thread started this week, I got home and had an issue of Progressive Farmer in the mail with an article about VFDs. The story is just repeating much of what has been said here regarding staffing issues, training, lack of time to volunteer, and people not working locally anymore.

I'm still surprised when I drive to work to see how many people are up early going to work in the "city."

Later,
Dan

Thanks for the info on the Progressive Farmer article. I'll see if I can find it, would that be the December or January issue?

 

[motepoc]

I was on the plant fire brigade for 30 years and a volunteer fireman with the local station for about 15 years. I also was an EMT at the plant too. We had yearly training at the plant at the state academy and monthly training at the plant. We had monthly training at the local station. I've also had some repelling training at the state academy. Have been to many fires and have saved some, and lost some. Only had one fatality, they didn't tell us ther was some in the building until after we were there for ten minutes. For thos who may not know, there is a completely different way you attack a fire when there is life involved. And that doesn't mean you let a house burn, just a different way.

I am not presently volunteering, but would respond to any I know about, in case that single fireman shows up and needs any help. The main reason I'm not presently volunteering is that I am a caregiver for my MIL who has Alzheimer's. Everytime we have called EMS because of mini-strokes MIL has had, the volunteer FF's show up first, since we live so far out in the country.
They are priceless as they say on those TV commercials. There is no way we could pay these people what they are worth. And they do all of what they do out of love for there fellow man.

I believe we will always have Volunteer FF because a lot of people feel this way. They are willing to give of themselves to help others. It's just that we have those few who don't give a hoot that get most of the press.

I am standing and saluting the men and women who serve. Not only the Firefighters, but Police, Doctors, Nurses, Aides and Servicemen and women around the world. Thankyou from the bottom of my heart.

 

[dooleysm]

My grandpa (dad's side) was a volunteer firefighter. He came home from fighting a field fire one night and died of a massive heart attack. This was about 5 years before I was born. It turns out that the fire was right across the street from my other grandpa's (mom's side) house, though my parents weren't dating at the time.

 

[dmccarty]

Thanks for the info on the Progressive Farmer article. I'll see if I can find it, would that be the December or January issue?

I think it was for January since I just got the magazine. I'll check tonight to see which edition I received.

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

I suppose many people lump all volunteer fire departments together when the fact is that the differences in them are astounding. I was a member of our country VFD. When I started, the total of the equipment was one worn out old one ton Ford flatbed truck with a 250 gallon water tank and a pump. The fellow whose garage it had been parked in had died and his widow wanted it moved. My brother and I and 3 neighbors started fund raising, garage sales, etc. and we got a fire station built. We got a military surplus duece and a half with two 500 gallon tanks, a military surplus one ton with a 250 gallon tank and pump. My brother and I (mostly him) tore down and rebuilt the engine in the old truck, we got the trucks all painted, and we recruited a few more neighbors to get a total of about 15 members. Only one guy actually had any firefighting training (we made him the fire chief) and that training was minimal at best. I was treasurer and did the driver training. In other words, we were strictly amateur volunteers.

About 15 miles away, a small town also had a volunteer fire department (and they responded in our area, too), but they had some very modern equipment, including their ambulance, and had some pretty well trained volunteers, including EMTs. A world of difference, but we all did the best we could with what we had.

And now where I live, we have a fire department that is a combination of paid and volunteers that serves 3 or 4 small cities. I don't know much about them except that they certainly have some fine facilities and equipment.