By Ciara Mceneany
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — When the Berkeley Hills Volunteer Fire Company got a call for a house fire in the early 2000s on Kinsdale Drive in Ross, it soon became a frenzied effort to get someone to the scene.
It got to the point that the Ross Township fire marshal had to drive the truck, fire Chief Dillon Coleman said. Eventually, firefighters got the blaze under control, rescuing a child trapped inside.
From that point on, the fire company knew something had to change.
A live-in program was created, offering free housing in exchange for service, to make sure volunteers are at the station to respond in a timely manner when a call comes in.
“We turned an office into a bunk room with three or four bunk beds in it, just to see if this is something we’re interested in, and it filled up pretty quick,” he said. “People started staying continuously and we went through five or six modifications since then, with our last being a renovation.”
Berkeley Hills can now accommodate up to 15 volunteers in dorm-style housing right inside the Siebert Road station.
The fire company is not the first, or last, volunteer department to offer a similar program in Western Pennsylvania.
With volunteer rates consistently in decline, many fire departments are looking for ways to gain and keep members. Nearly 90% of the 2,462 fire departments statewide are made up of volunteers.
In Allegheny County 96% of departments are volunteer-based.
It’s a problem nationwide, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council. In 1984, there were nearly 900,000 volunteers across the country. That number had fallen to just over 650,000 by 2020.
“We provide a vital service and are not getting paid while putting our lives in jeopardy,” said Ben Reynolds, chief of the Edgewood Volunteer Fire Department.
‘Peaks and valleys’
Since volunteers are not paid and have other commitments, a live-in program offers the incentive of free housing for those who are already juggling work and other responsibilities, Chief Reynolds said.
Edgewood has seen an increase in calls over the years, topping out at 700 as of last week. The department created their live-in program a decade ago to address the growing need.
The department currently has 35 volunteer firefighters, though none of them are utilizing the live-in program full-time, Chief Reynolds said. Beds are currently used by volunteers that stay the night here and there for possible calls, since the final live-in program member moved out last week into an apartment close by.
“There is a particular cycle for volunteer recruitment,” he said. “When you run a live-in program you have to expect to run into this cycle of peaks and valleys.”
Fluctuation in members, live-in or not, is due to many going on to paid positions in the field, such as career fire departments and EMS agencies — a “risk” with volunteer recruitment altogether, he said.
Most live-in volunteers at Berkeley Hills, Edgewood, Monroeville and Penn Hills stay with the department for an average of three to five years.
At Penn Hills Volunteer Fire Department No. 7, leadership has made significant investments to their live-in program, said Chief Bill Jeffcoat.
Buying the building next door in 2018, the department renovated the top floor to become a dorm-style facility, featuring a living room, kitchen, bathrooms and laundry. There are enough beds to accommodate around 20 volunteers, as well as multiple bunk-ins, who sign up to help from other departments.
The department has 40 active members, the chief said.
The live-in program has attracted younger members looking to gain hands-on experience at a station with a high call volume, he said. It has also shortened response times, with an average three-minute turnaround for getting a firetruck headed to a scene after receiving a call.
Lt. D.J. Lesh, president of the Monroeville Volunteer Fire Company No. 1, said live-in programs also offer the opportunity to save money while gaining skills.
“I think a lot of the younger individuals like to use it as a way, whether it’s immediately post-high school, college, to have a place to live that’s not home,” he said. “They’re beginning their early stages of independence from living at home, while not incurring expenses of renting an apartment, and then using it to gain experience in the fire service, often to eventually get a paid job.”
To go on calls at volunteer fire departments or join a live-in program a candidate must commit to undergoing hundreds of hours worth of fire training first. This alone can be a hiccup when trying to recruit new members, Chief Jeffcoat said.
“How do you pull someone into this lifestyle and tell them before they can do anything they need close to 230 hours of training?” he said. “I mean, if I came off the street with a full-time job, a wife, a son, a mortgage, and vehicle payments, where do I find that time to go and get training before I can put a mask on and go put fires out?”
Berkeley Hills, Edgewood, Monroeville and Penn Hills have seen success, with improved response times and help reducing costs.
‘Not a sustainable solution’
According to a Pennsylvania state Senate report from 2018, fire and EMS services are in a “crisis,” citing an aging population, declining volunteer rates, cost increases and communities shifting focus to individual needs, such as bills and groceries, instead of financially supporting agencies like fire and EMS.
The responsibility to find long-term solutions falls on individual volunteer departments, according to the report.
“And yet, Pennsylvania and its communities continue to rely in large measure on volunteers to perform this critical emergency response and public safety service,” the report said.
Many local volunteer fire departments have pursued financial aid that could help them with recruitment and retention since live-in programs are not “a sustainable solution long-term,” said Edgewood’s Chief Reynolds.
Berkeley Hills was recently awarded a Staffing For Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant of just under $550,000 through the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA ) to put towards recruitment and retention efforts, such as advertising and marketing, Chief Coleman said.
Funds will also be used to give each member a small stipend. For the last five years, Ross has given $80,000 to its eight volunteer fire departments, but Berkeley Hills responds to the highest number of calls at upwards of 2,000 so far in 2024. The annual budget for Berkeley Hills sits at about $250,000, Chief Coleman said.
The Community College of Allegheny County also has a program that works with local volunteer departments.
In 2009, the college launched its Firevest Scholarship program, which gives students who are already members with a local department free training at the county fire academy, and full scholarships towards a certificate or associate degree.
Candidates must commit to five years of service to an Allegheny County fire department after graduating, said Rick Susulla, director of public safety at CCAC. Firevest currently has 119 people enrolled.
Pennsylvania does have an Active Volunteer Tuition and Loan Assistance Program, which provides $1,000 a year to full-time students and $500 to part-time students. That program was instituted in 2022 in response to the “growing crisis in attracting first responders,” according to the program’s website. It also provides a number of grants and low-interest loans.
So what can departments do to increase volunteer rates? That is what leadership at every level is grappling with, said Monroeville’s Lt. Lesh.
“Every Sunday night, we’re having a family dinner at the fire station. Getting people to come up and have dinner is helping a lot. So we’re always trying to think of new and creative ways that don’t cost our station a fortune because, again, we are all volunteers,” he said.
“I think there’s a general stigma around why someone would want to do this. We’re all here because we’re having fun and doing it with people we like, but it’s definitely hard. If you had asked me when I was graduating high school if I thought I would ever be a volunteer firefighter, I probably would have told you you were crazy because it does sound crazy. It can be hard to understand why someone would do it for free when it feels like it should be a paid job.”
(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.