Decline in Fire and EMS Volunteers in the US

Volunteer Firefighting

The current setting of our country's economic position leaves many questions unanswered and creates new problems in unexpected areas. Volunteer firefighters are in short demand these days and it is necessary and important to investigate and gain knowledge of the reasons why this trend is occurring. The purpose of this essay is to examine some root causes of the current decline in volunteer firefighting across the United States of America. In addition to describing the causes of this problem, I will also introduce some proposed solutions that may be helpful in setting a new trend towards solving this problem.

Most agree in today's world volunteer firefighters are in sharp decline and retention of these workers is suffering as well. Markley (2012) recently warned the firefighting community when stated that "when the National Fire Protection Association released its latest figures on the number of firefighters in the United States last October, an alarm went off in the volunteer sector. That's because the number of volunteer firefighters was at its lowest since 1991." Additionally, Flemming (2011) realized this trend as well, "Increased training requirements, more duties, squeezed family lives and less-flexible employers have all contributed to a decrease in the number of people willing to drop everything and pick up a hose, local fire chiefs say."

But what are the causes of this trend? Why is this happening? It would be easy to just write this problem off as a causality of a poor economy, but that oversimplifies the matter and a deeper perspective must be offered in order to really comprehend the subject and then be able to contribute worthwhile solutions.

Volunteer firefighters are unique individuals who are compelled to risk their lives for others. This respect for life and the courage to face great danger certainly contributes to why there may be a shortage of volunteer firefighters. This tendency to act in heroic ways is a rare behavior in today's society and should not be overlooked in contributing towards this trend of declining volunteer rates. Perhaps this is a sign that society is stretched to the limit and individual heroism is being used to save the individual himself.

Specifically, the economy does bring certain and directly influencing problems to the larger problem at hand. Salsberry (2012) suggested that with a majority of families having two working parents, time is at a premium and volunteerism in general is suffering to gather supporters. The economy also strips local budgets of funds that went previously to volunteer firefighting resources.

Another significant contributing factor is that many volunteer firehouses are seeing many of their firefighters to opt out of serving in lieu of retiring. Markley highlighted this argument "people are retiring and we are failing to bring in younger people to fill those spots. The average age of volunteer firefighters is increasing -- that much we know." The pinch for volunteer firefighters can be witnessed in communities throughout the nation and dealing with the age issues of this problem must be addressed in order to successfully fix this problem.

Perhaps one of the biggest contributors to the dwindling numbers of volunteer firefighters reporting to duty is the job itself. Firefighters are asked to do many different tasks for a community. Fighting fires used to be a more simple task. Firefighters are expected to be qualified and certified in many different types of skills. Hazardous waste removal, emergency medical services and counter-terrorism services appears to have volunteer firehouses stretched to the limit. Flemming noted that "firefighters go through an average of about 100 hours of initial training before they can fight their first fire. Then come about another 100 hours to learn how to be first responders, deal with hazardous materials calls and perform other varied duties." This takes a serious toll on what a community organization can do in terms of keeping their environment safe and secure.