In my many years as a volunteer firefighter many people always pose this one question, “why do we need firefighters”?  Many people ask this question and it is answered with this saying “we don’t need them until we really need them”, or it better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.  As technology changes society changes and the fire service must adapt.  As people become more and more disconnected from their communities it puts a strain on a key thing that the community needs volunteer firefighters.  So, “why is there a rapid population decline in the volunteer fire department sector?” Is it just from society becoming disconnected or is it from the decreasing number in fire related calls. Can time be a major factor. Everyone live a fast pace life everything is on a Schedule or plan; do we have the time to move in lives.  By looking at statistics and viewing the history we can see a gradual change that is affecting volunteer firefighter departments. 

Many people do not even know the different between career firefighters and volunteer firefighters, and honestly there is no different except for one thing career firefighters gets paid and volunteer firefighters pays with their time.  One of my fire instructor always told me that “fire does not care if you are a volunteer or career when it touches you it going to burn”.  When you look at all the statistics about volunteer department volunteer firefighters make up majority of the firefighters in the United States of America.  In 2017 seventy percent of all firefighters in the United State are volunteer and thirty percent are career firefighters. the numbers from volunteer firefighters are decreasing while career firefighters number are on the rise. For the past thirty-four years there have been a gradually shift in the volunteer fire department causing and an increase on the career side. From the year 1983 to 2014 volunteer numbers have drop from 884,600 to 788,250 and for career firefighter have increase from 226,600 to 346,150 according to the (National Fire Protection Association Report).  Many people believe this shift is cause by people leaving the rural for better paying jobs in the larger cities. As more people leave the rural area it makes a significant impact on volunteer fire department recruitment for more candidates.  

With limited opportunity and an aging population in the rural areas it is becoming difficult with getting younger citizens available to take the place of the older volunteer firefighters, but fire department are still actively searching. But out of those who want to volunteer society has made it extremely difficult for qualified individual to donate their time.  According to the New York Times there has been a rise in the two income households this has limited the availability of many rural citizen. This often mean that there are no parents to stay at home with the children so that the other parent can go off and respond to emergencies calls.  Also with the increase in train and the time requirements it takes to become certified in firefighting people simply just do not have the time nor the money to put in to help their community. But as you look deeper at the situation many people have the mean to volunteer, but they simply just do not.

In the begin when someone calls 911 for medic emergency they do not expect the fire department to respond.  But as I stated before when society changes we must adapt.  As statistics shown there has been major change in traditional firefighting. More firefighters are respond to medic calls than fire call.  Since the mid 1980 all fire related call has dropped by more than 3.6 million from volunteer and career firefighters.  According to a New York Times article in 2012 about five percent of all emergency call for firefighter were for actual fires. The total number of medical calls for fire departments has jumped by 167 percent in twenty-six years, largely because medical responses have gone up by 15.2 million. This has put strain on volunteer department not only volunteer firefighters have to train in fire they have to put more time and effort in getting trained in the emergency medical service as well.    

 I think psychology can help explain one reason, why do some people so hesitate to help one another?  Is it because people are scared to see gruesome thing or is it just easy to not to help. Some social psychologist explains this as the bystander effect. The bystander effected occurs when individual are discouraged from intervening in emergency situation. I feel that this is prevalence around the fire service. Many people always ask me “why are you a volunteer?” they always say, “man I do not see how you can do it”, and I just tell them I like helping people and my community. Some people I talk with believe that they do not think they capable of help other people. Then try to Tell them “you do not know until you try”.  As more people continue to follow the social norm volunteer fire departments are going to hurt and continue to struggle. As volunteer fire department continue to struggle the community is to continue struggle.  

After doing my research there are many factors in to why volunteer fire department are not getting people to volunteer.  The main reason why people do not volunteer is because people simply just do not have the time to spare. But with all the requirements and restrictions the federal government put on fire department it does not make it easier for volunteer department to keep volunteer.  Most volunteer fire department also put requirement on volunteer firefighter to help retain volunteers. Some of these requirements are that volunteer must make a certain percentage of calls a month and there is a time range on get training.  One political science associate professor at St. joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who studied the decline of volunteer firefighters said that “too much is being asked of volunteer fire department. He said that “they have to do fund-raise, train, and have to go and fight fire all on volunteer time.  Volunteer fire department do not get the funding like most city fire department. Cities taxes the citizen in their jurisdiction more than what the counties taxes the rural citizens. Therefore, many rural citizens stay in the rural areas.   So many volunteer department must go out and ask for more funding to help attracted more volunteers.   

With all these major factors in why there is a rapid decline in the volunteer fire department sector some state have made efforts in trying to assist volunteer fire departments in helping retain and attract new volunteer firefighters.   New York State has granted volunteer firefighters property tax abatements, income tax credits and up to 50,000 in the line of duty death benefits. States like California, Missouri, and New Jersey have granted volunteer fire department thing like taxpayer subsidized pension, college tuition assistance and life insurance benefits.   Some other state allows volunteer fire department to provide workers’ compensation.  This program is often a state-run program.  But some program are done in the volunteer departments that also benefit the volunteer firefighters.  Many departments are offering to cover time spent training, cost of travel, gas and transport. They also do an incentive program encouraging volunteer to respond to calls. This incentive program gives a percentage of money per call ran by the departments personnel.  These are all things states, counties and volunteer departments are doing to retain volunteer firefighters.  

Firefighting is an extremely difficult and a challenging job. It does not matter if you are a volunteer firefighter or a career firefighter they both do the same job.  Volunteer fire department helps the citizen they protect out a lot.  By saving the taxpayer money in many ways like lower house insurance rate and lower property taxes.   Rural community are now seeing the effects of less volunteers on the community by longer responses times. Social media has been a significant help in informing the communities of the problems that they are going to face soon in the future.      
