Full length front view of first responders in 30s, 40s, and 60s wearing turnout gear looking at camera while standing in front of fire engine.
Central Pennsylvania fire companies have some success recruiting volunteers
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Scott LaMar
Full length front view of first responders in 30s, 40s, and 60s wearing turnout gear looking at camera while standing in front of fire engine.
Airdate: May 10th, 2023
Ninety-seven percent of firefighters in Pennsylvania are volunteers. In the 1970s, there were 360,000 volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania. Today, there are fewer than 37,000.
There have been on-going efforts to recruit new volunteers.
One year ago, 21 fire companies in the capital region across multiple counties banded together, helped by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and recruited 71 new volunteer firefighters – well past their goal of 50.
How did they do it and can the success of that campaign grow and be used elsewhere?
Joining us on The Spark Wednesday were Scott Ryno, Fire Chief at Columbia Borough Fire Department Station 80, Battalion Chief at York Area United Fire and Rescue, Vice President at Keystone Community Medical Services, President at RYNO Public Safety Solutions and Program Manager of SAFER grant and David Macfaline, a new volunteer at the New Cumberland Fire Company.
Chief Ryno said,”Those numbers are getting less and less every year. It’s community and area dependent. Some areas are still maintaining volunteers. Some areas are doing well. But as a general rule, we’re seeing less and less volunteers each year. And, in many cases in many communities, those numbers are now reaching dire straits or the ability to actually get a staffed fire truck on the road, depending on the time of day.”
Ryno was asked why there are fewer people volunteering to be firefighters,”People’s lives today are very busy on many households. Everybody works. Now those, parties or work and if you have a family, kids are in sports and there’s just a lot of things these days vying for your time. And volunteerism is not only down in fire dominated, it’s down in organizations in general. We’ll take you to volunteer for whatever you can do. If you don’t want to be a firefighter, but you can help in other ways, we’ll certainly take that. But if ultimately you want to be a firefighter, we’re not only asking you to come in and volunteer, we’re also asking you then to go to a number of training classes that will add up to a couple of hundred hours. Now, you know, we’re going to pay for those. There’s monies within the grant to pay for those. There’s monies in the grant to buy the turnout gear that you need to wear to train and go in a fire. So there’s not a cost issue to you at all. However, there is a time issue. We are asking you to invest and make a commitment of time to get trained to be a firefighter.”
Why did this recruiting campaign work,”I think one of the biggest things is planning and focus. This is a very well-planned out campaign. We have a website that drives this campaign. It’s called CapitalRegionFirefighter.org. We drive people to that Web site, which represents all 21 companies. And there’s a lot of visual there of what the fire company does. There’s a lot of description of what we’re looking for or what we’re trying to recruit. There’s a lot of action shots. So, a there’s a focused campaign and there’s a lot of marketing behind this. So, I think one of the keys is to have the proper message and make that message known and continue to beat the street with that message. And again, we’ve been doing that for about a year now, and the goal was 50 per year. This is a four year program so far in year one. We’re able to recruit 71. So we’re going to continue that path.”
Macfaline said he wanted to become a firefighters to “give back to the community.”
