Every so often, the local fire dept. asks if the locals would like to be volunteer firefighters.

And I always wonder how someone could afford to do that?

I live in a small town, population 2,475. It is mainly a bedroom community for the state Capital.

We have one signal light, one supermarket, one beer/Playboy/candy store, one gas station, one bar, one RV consignment, one attorney, one cafe, one restaurant, one storage shed builder, a tree nursery, a satellite cop-shop, one small auto parts, two sandwich joints, a barber, a PO, 1.5 banks, three churches, a 2-day food bank, a pole yard, and several fly-by-night car repair places.

There are no big businesses that could afford to let their people just take off. Even in the next town south, the only big employer (a mine) was closed down. I don't think there are any multi-shift places down there, either.

So please educate me on how people (mostly guys) can AFFORD to be unpaid firefighters. If they work north (22 mi) or south (12+ mi), I don't see how they would be available to leave on a moments notice for a fire or other emergency.

Own their own business? Independently wealthy? Work at home? How could someone do it, realistically?

Sue

Not sure in the US, but in small towns here some volunteers just close their shop or let one of the employees go.

Current most company's are compensated for the lost labor hours by the local government. In the past they would also do some gentlemen's agreements with the local department. Also a trick is to look volunteer house wife's, one department even wrote a letter to all the ladies in a certain age range to gain more volunteers.

May have just been the area but my cousin got to tax deduct some of the gear he purchased. So if your prepared anyway (i.e. already buying cna carrying around a bunch of gear) you can get help that way. The fare department owned items like the fire trucks, pagers, etc were done bya fund raiser.
The local car dealership he worked for the owner allowed employees to take off for fire calls, I would assume he got certain tax advantages for that as well. IIRC business can get reimbrused some amount plus its helpfull if you ever have an employee get hurt on the job you have help right there.

Hi Sue,

I have been an active volunteer for over 20 years and yes, it can be a challenge. While I do not leave work for fire or EMS calls, I do leave work for technical rescue calls. I use Annual Leave so my employer is not responsible for me whenever I respond or engage in weekday training. For non-work time and I am in town, I am on call 24-7 for all technical rescue calls. I along with most volunteers, miss many family meals and activities, it just the way it is and for the most part our families understand.

Across the county, we have various situations; some employers do allow their volunteer members to leave work. In the more rural areas, many of the farmers are also members of the fire department and make every effort to respond to calls.

Pete

I was in a similar situation as a SAR volunteer, which often conflicted with work, where I also took annual leave, frequently just a few hours at a time. I was able to tweak my work schedule so that i worked four days a week, ten hours a day, which allowed me to have the weekend and Mondays free. There definitely can be conflicts with home and family obligations, and often it was impossible to get away from work. That is why you need a fairly large group of volunteers.

My teenage daughter began to object to my SAR work, because I missed some of her activities. That disappeared when I spent a Christmas Day and the following night searching (successfully) for one of her classmates during a heavy winter storm. As long as I kept things in balance, my employer saw SAR work as community service and therefore a good thing. My ex-wife never did think much of the program.....

You just have to strike a balance and make adjustments, like parting ways with the wife. That will differ with every situation and circumstance.

I was a voluteer during college. Obviously I would not have my pager on during class or during work (worked part-time all through college). All other times, I would have it on.

Obviously, if everyone was like that, there wouldn't be nearly enough people available. But, there were a lot of people who worked at jobs nearby that could leave. Lots of part-time people. Etc...

Somehow, it just all works. May not be an ideal situation, but we certainly had coverage...

I volunteer with a SAR group. We do most of our training during evenings and weekends. For actual rescue call outs on weekends we can get a good turnout. It is true that during weekdays it is harder, and we get fewer people available. One way it works is if your team grows to a certain "critical mass" of volunteers. That way there are always at least some folks who are free at any given time.

I'm getting older and will probably retire in a couple of years. The good news is that I will have more free time to be available for SAR. The bad news is that I'm not as fast going up the hills as I used to be. That means I will probably not be in the "hasty team", instead I will be in the "old slow guys follow on team". But I intend to stay involved in whatever way I can, for as long as I can.

My experience is that volunteer SAR teams are overall some of the nicest people you will run into. It is a self selecting group. We all have our quirks, but the real jerks don't seem to hang around very long, once they find out that it is mostly hard work and not much glory.

I'm a volunteer EMT with a local volunteer ambulance company on Long Island, in the suburbs of NYC. I work closely with the combined volunteer/career department one town over (they provide fire suppression and heavy rescue coverage to my district).

Back in the day, there were plenty of "blue collar" jobs locally, where it was relatively easy to make it to fire calls, and many fire houses were "blue collar country clubs," i.e. the center of the social life for many in the community.

The fact of the matter is that there are many fewer people around here who make thier living locally anymore. Most folks are commuting into NYC.

Our squad is now predominately commuters, and while we have no trouble getting a crew out at night or on the weekend, we often have trouble during the work day. Our automatic mutual aid during the day goes to the combined department in the next town, which has a paid crew to respond, but they take twice as long to get here than we would, if we had a crew.

There are no easy answers. If we go to a paid crew during the day, taxes will invariably go up. I work locally, and own my own business, so I am often able to respond during the day, but at what cost to my business?

As an aside, in New York State volunteer firefighters (and EMTs) get $200 off their state income taxes (not a big number) and after five years get 20% off their property taxes (potentially a big number).

Around here there are regulations that say the employer has to allow volunteer firefighters to go for emergencies and he has to allow them to get some sleep if the emergency required him to stay up all night. The volunteer must tell an employer that he is volunteer when applying for a job.
It is affordable if there is a critical mass so the volunteers can take shifts. A first squad comes on moments notice the reinforcements or second shift has time to prepare.
Some employers actually like to have volunteers. It means they have trained staff in case of an emergency at their place. It also means that insurance companies rate them as a lower risk. That has direct impact on their insurance fees.
And don´t forget: Viewed from the right angle it is a satisfying hobby where guys get to play with heavy machinery they could not even dream to afford from their own salary . Sometimes entire families get integrated in the community so even the problem of lonely wife and kids at home is solved.

Speak of the devil. . .

Minutes after I posted my post above, my pager went off for a Motor Vehicle Accident with Entrapment (a "pin job"). I thought I'd tell you about it, as it shows you the kind of resources necessary to safely respond to a bad, but not out of the ordinary accident.

There were five different agencies that sent apparatus and personell to the scene. My agency provided an ambulance and BLS technicians (volunteer), FD1 provided a heavy rescue with a Hurst tool ("Jaws of Life")(combined), FD2 provided an engine for standby fire suppression (volunteer), FD3 provided a ladder truck with a second Hurst tool, and finally the county police provided ALS technicians, Traffic control, and air support (all full-time paid responders).

All in all, we are talking about more than thirty responders from five agencies to handle an accident that had it happened over the border in NYC would have been handled completely by either FDNY or NYPD, but most likely by both. There is no way that my town could have handled this on its own, and we drew resources from three additional fire districts plus the county police.

I'm not really sure what my point is, other than to say I'm increadibly proud of my colleagues who put down their work to go and do an important job to save lives. I'm not really sure how we continue to have the response that we have around here without volunteers or vastly higher taxes. If you can volunteer, I urge you to do so. You learn great skills, and it is immensely rewarding.

BTW, the patient who had been pinned was extricated after a 20-minute operation and airlifted to the county trauma center with some pretty gruesome injuries. Total time from accident to arrival at the hospital was probably 40 minutes, well within the "golden hour."

Edit: Photos, if anyone is interested.

I'm the guy in the yellow holding up the IV bag



The extrication guys doing their thing:


I'm the guy to the far right in the bunker pants