Successful leaders of volunteer fire departments must be the biggest optimists in the world. At a time when businesses are struggling to keep their paid employees and finding new employees who want to work for ever increasing wages, volunteer leaders are still seeking people to work for free in jobs where their health, safety, and lives are at great risk. The ongoing efforts of these leaders define the term “extreme optimism.” However, no matter how optimistic leaders of the volunteer emergency services may be, today’s news from across the nation continues to report that, yes, there is a growing crisis in the fire rescue service, and leaders must address this need now if these services are going to survive.

Ensuring proper staffing as well as efficient, effective, and safe responses at every emergency is the most important goal in every emergency service agency. Today, major career fire and other emergency service agencies across the nation are struggling to provide emergency response staffing with career personnel. These agencies are advertising nationwide for people to become career firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) in their cities by offering trained firefighters and EMTs thousands of dollars in sign-on bonuses; some are even providing housing assistance if those trained people are willing to relocate to their cities and join their departments. These actions cause communities that depend on volunteers as emergency responders to see their volunteers leave for communities that are offering them paid careers.

There are hard questions and even harder answers regarding volunteer department staffing. However, the primary question volunteers or potential volunteers must ask themselves is, How can I best serve the needs of my family and also meet my life career goals while serving in emergency services? This is especially true if they live in areas where people are moving away for better climate, lower cost of living, and the many other factors that cause people to seek “greener pastures.” Chiefs who are struggling to staff their volunteer departments must also ask themselves what their departments are doing to keep current volunteers and recruit new ones and what current volunteers as well as potential new volunteers expect, want, and need.

If you are searching for new volunteers, would your honest “Help Wanted” ad look like the one in Figure 1? Sadly, the conditions shown in Figure 1 still exist, either partially or fully, in many of the fire-rescue departments that are struggling to survive today. No amount of optimism will help you recruit new volunteers if the conditions in this ad continue to describe your agency. To be successful in volunteer recruitment, you must first identify who your new volunteers might be and what you need to provide for them if you want them to volunteer. Leaders must also understand why and when they need new volunteers; how they will train them; and, most importantly, how to find and keep any new volunteers. Determining the answers to each of these questions before beginning your search is a similar process that leaders use when preplanning for success at every incident.

Figure 1. Volunteer “Help Wanted” Ad

Apply at XYZ Department on Tuesday evening from 1900 to 2100

We really need you to join us and be a volunteer fireman!

As emergency responders, we know that if we are called to help find a missing child, we need to know facts about who we are looking for before we begin our search. So, when looking for new recruits, ask what facts your agency has gathered to help its search for potential new volunteers.

Although the pandemic has worsened and increased problems as well as negatively impacted agencies’ abilities to perform their mission, some leaders still resist change or ignore the fact that the world has changed. No matter when change began in your agency, now is the time to reexamine how changes in people’s lives and their personal expectations impact the operation of your emergency services. In fact, every emergency services leader must step back and understand that the lives of every American, including the lives of current and future emergency response team members, have changed, and how their people think and function will continue to change and impact the ability of their emergency agency to serve their community.

The most important issue for emergency response leaders to address is the need to monitor and understand response staffing capabilities and weaknesses. To conduct the following, every agency must establish and enforce policies and practices that provide continuous, full 360° knowledge of every primary condition relative to their emergency responses:

Can your agency respond with the sufficient staffing and resources needed to mitigate emergencies that occur both in and outside of your community? Ask yourself the following:

Also ask yourself, have the leaders of your agency’s automatic- and mutual-aid agencies established common policies that address the following?

To be successful, examine each of these factors—separately and together—as part of the whole; each must be addressed successfully if an agency is to survive. Many of the tools needed to accomplish the mission are already part of the members’ knowledge, skills, and abilities “toolbox” on which emergency services leaders have trained for years.

Before you begin your search for new volunteers, understand who your current volunteers are and why they are still volunteering by asking the following questions:

The student numbers will clearly show if your community is growing or shrinking. Find out how many young people in your community would want to donate their time and energy serving in a risk-filled service if they knew about what your department had to offer them.

Before you begin to search for new volunteers, let’s dispel a myth that exists in the minds of many “old-timers”: “The kids today just do not want to volunteer.” Teenagers in Sackets Harbor, New York, proved this assumption to be false. When their volunteer ambulance corps could not get adults to volunteer, a group of high school students did readily volunteer. Those teenagers got the training they needed to become EMTs and primary emergency medical services (EMS) responders in Sackets Harbor. And, they were not the only teenagers who would be willing to step up and become volunteers if they knew about the need and felt welcome in their local emergency services.

Once you have ensured that your recruiting message welcomes all, where and how do you begin the search for new volunteers? Let’s take a closer look at Figure 1’s “Volunteers Wanted” ad to address each issue.

Help Wanted—Volunteer Firemen. We see the term “Firemen” used frequently in and by emergency services when, in fact, the correct term should be “Firefighter.” The term “firemen” signals to more than 50 percent of the citizens who might want to volunteer that they may not be welcome. Has your agency reviewed all its documents to ensure that they are gender neutral? Do you refer to your volunteers as “firefighters”? Do you have a firefighter’s association and other groups that still refer to “firemen” rather than “firefighters”?

Apply at XYZ Department on Tuesday evening from 1900 to 2100. If a prospective candidate is not available on Tuesday nights, as the ad says, how can he find more information about your agency and what to expect? Your department’s Web site should have a recruitment space where prospects can learn more about the job, provide contact information, and ask questions. Also, you must have a person in charge of recruitment who checks the site daily, responds to prospects’ questions, and sends them invitations to visit your agency.

Fireman training classes are held at 1900 hours Tuesdays at the fire station. Attendance is mandatory. You cannot expect any young person who has spent the past two years in quarantine, who was also taking virtual classes for high school and college, to attend mandatory in-person classes every week. Ask yourself, What have you done to provide virtual classes and remote training?

Once fully trained, the volunteer fireman will be provided one (1) set of previously used personal protective equipment (PPE). Unfortunately, I have seen departments issue new volunteers used, uncleaned PPE. No new volunteer should ever be issued gear that has not been fully cleaned and reconditioned. And, when new volunteers are issued their PPE, it should have their name on it in big letters.

All volunteer firemen are expected to carry their PPE in their private vehicle for use at emergency incidents/If the volunteer fireman will be responding to emergencies in his private vehicle, the volunteer fireman must purchase an emergency light for his vehicle. If your agency expects its volunteers to respond to emergencies in their private vehicles, you must provide them with something in which to carry their protective gear so the PPE will not contaminate the interior of their vehicle as well as a warning light for their vehicle.

Volunteer firefighters are expected to immediately leave their job, family event, or home and respond to all emergencies/Volunteer firemen are expected to respond to every emergency 24/7/365. Long gone are the “Norman Rockwell” days of volunteers dropping everything to rush in and help their neighbors. In the age of telecommuting, many current and prospective volunteers are now working their regular jobs at home. Does your leadership understand that even today’s children have their daily schedules on their cell phones? Your department must allow your volunteers to schedule the time when they will be able to volunteer.

The department does not supply station wear uniforms for volunteer firemen. Wearing a uniform that shows membership in a fire department has always been a source of pride for the people in emergency services. Providing every volunteer with station wear that identifies the volunteer as a member of the fire department gives them a public sign of pride and professionalism—because being a true professional has nothing to do with being paid for a job; it is shown by a person’s training, actions, and abilities to perform each task successfully. Now, I know many professional volunteers.

If a volunteer’s clothing is contaminated at an incident, the volunteer will need to drive home in his personal vehicle wearing that contaminated clothing to change clothes/Volunteer firemen are responsible for washing any contaminated clothing in the family laundry room and to shower at home. Really? Would you want your family members to ride in a vehicle that has been contaminated by toxin residue from the previous incident or stained by the body fluids from an accident victim? You should not have to wash your young daughter’s favorite party dress in the same machine that just washed clothing with those contaminants and toxins, nor should you have your family members walk on the floor where you took off your contaminated clothing to take a shower.

The department is not responsible for decontamination of volunteer firemen’s private vehicle or home if contaminated by incident residue. This may be your fire department’s policy, but when a family member gets sickened by the contaminants brought into their home by a volunteer, their family lawyer will have a totally different viewpoint on what your department is responsible for, and the courts will agree with their lawyer. And, if your volunteers are still expected to drive their personal vehicles to and from incidents, what have you done to help protect their vehicles from being contaminated by the resultant residue? Have policies in place to protect your volunteer’s family and home from the contaminants from that emergency incident.

If a volunteer fireman would prefer to respond from the station, please be advised that our fire station is only equipped to be the parking space for our apparatus. I have been in “fire stations” that had a water heater so the apparatus could be washed with hot water after a call. However, those stations had no shower room where responders could clean up. Is your fire or EMS station just another one of the thousands across the nation that are no more than garages to park emergency vehicles? Are your shiny vehicles more important than the people who serve—or could serve—your community as volunteer emergency responders? If volunteers just want to go hang around a garage, they could just sit at the local car dealer, where they at least have a waiting room with a coffee machine, TV, snack machine, and comfortable chairs. Even if your fire station was built many years ago strictly as a place to park apparatus, why is your department still treating your vehicles better than your volunteers?

Your agency could provide the facilities that your volunteers want and need by purchasing the house across the street and converting it into a facility for new members. Some agencies have bought modular homes built to their specifications for multiple sleeping rooms as well as other features that volunteers want and need. There are also agencies that have put new and used mobile homes behind their stations.

If you weren’t already a volunteer, what would make you want to join your department today? Amenities such as a kitchen to prepare meals and snacks; a lounge room with a TV and video games; a personal locker; an equipped fitness center at which to stay in shape for your duties; a laundry room to wash personal clothing, station wear; and PPE; a bunk room or separate sleeping areas to allow overnight stays; and Internet service, where one can work privately if you telecommute for your job, are all necessities in today’s volunteer service.

New volunteer firemen are advised that they can expect to be frequently told by more senior volunteers that what they have learned in fire training classes is “not how we do it here.” If this is true in your agency, it is time to conduct training for senior volunteers to refresh their understanding of how their agency wants things done. Also, teach senior volunteers how they can and must mentor new volunteers to help ensure the new members’ safety and proficiency.

Volunteer firemen must be available for weekly apparatus and equipment cleaning and inspection on Saturday mornings. This task must always be a priority and, like all tasks, should be part of a schedule that rotates members in to perform these duties as well as teaches new volunteers the “what,” “why,” and “how to” of these tasks.

All volunteer firemen are expected to work at the monthly spaghetti dinner, the annual BBQ, and the annual bazaar to raise the funds required to operate this department. The community does not expect the members of the police, highway patrol, schools, or any other public service to raise their own funds so they can serve the public, so why would volunteer firefighters be expected to raise their own funds?

All volunteer firemen are expected to participate in the annual toy drive and to march in parades in the region weekly during summer months. These events provide good public relations for the department. However, they should be fun events and never become the primary focus of the department or mandatory for any volunteers.

There will be no compensation for any volunteer. Many volunteer departments have found that, yes, they can provide some form of compensation for their volunteers. In college towns, many agencies have a ready pool of student volunteers when the agency provides students with living quarters in return for their volunteer services. Also, most communities have unmarried people who would love to save thousands of dollars in rent money by living at the fire station in return for being a volunteer, but they also must be aware of the opportunity. For daytime staffing, are quiet workspaces and Internet services provided? Some departments have found volunteers among the ranks of people who telecommute for their employment.

If the answer to any of the issues in this ad is, “We do not have that,” “No, we have not done that,” or “No, we have not done anything to protect our most valuable assets—our volunteers,” the only real question is, “Why not?” (And your answer cannot be, “Because this is how we have always done it!”)

So, the question remains, What are you doing to ensure successful recruitment and retention of your volunteers? Successfully answer the key questions asked above to address our volunteer recruitment problem. Although this article was focused on issues in volunteer agencies, many career and combination agencies must address these issues as well, and agency leaders must ensure that every member of their organization makes solving these problems a team effort.

Author’s note: Volunteers living at the station is certainly not a new idea. When I was in college, I was a volunteer firefighter and lived for three years at a volunteer fire company in Rochester, New York. That company has also had volunteers living at its station since the 1850s.

RON GRANER is a public safety consultant who retired as chief of three fire departments. He is also the author of The Fire Chief’s Tool Box (Fire Engineering).