By Meghan Foley, North Adams Transcript
Article Launched: 11/18/2008 11:08:44 AM EST
Fire chiefs of three North Berkshire communities say they need more manpower for their volunteer and on-call departments. Lanesborough has 22 to 25 volunteer firefighters, New Ashford has 12, and Williamstown has 18 active members of its on-call department, but despite these numbers, the fire chiefs say they need more.
"It's getting tougher and tougher to get people," Philip Rancourt, fire chief of the New Ashford Volunteer Fire Department, said Wednesday.
He said over the last 10 years, it has been more difficult to find members for a department in which he would like to have between 15 and 18 volunteer firefighters.
"It's a lot of free time you have to give," he said, explaining on of the reasons it is difficult to attract people.
In addition, in a town that has only 248 people, according to the 2007 U.S. Census estimate, there isn't a large population pool to draw from. And, Rancourt said, taking courses in firefighting and emergency response takes a lot of time.
While there are dedicated people who have been with the Fire Department for 30 years, he said they are getting "burned out," and it's harder to get younger people because they move out of the town.
Charlie Durfee, chief of the Lanesborough Volunteer Fire Department, said Thursday that 10 to 12 years ago, the department had 40 volunteers, but times have changed - people get married and have children, and with the economy the way it is, both parents have to work to support a family.
"It's
a huge commitment, and it's getting harder and harder to get people to volunteer," Durfee said.
When people joined the Lanesborough department, they used to receive a pager and turnout gear and get some training before they became volunteer firefighters, he said. Now they have to take courses in CPR, first aid and automated external defibrillators, along with learning about blood-borne pathogens and taking hazardous material training, he said.
In addition, Lanesborough requires volunteer firefighters to have Firefighter I and II certified training.
According to the 2007 U.S. Census estimate, the population of Lanesborough is 2,891.
Craig A. Pedercini, fire chief of the Williamstown Fire District, said Thursday that with parents spending more time at home with their children and going to activities their children are involved in, there is less time for volunteering. Williamstown's volunteers are paid, however, whenever they respond to fires or emergencies.
"Volunteerism is almost a thing of the past. We're not getting the same turnout as we used to," Pedercini said. At one time in the district's history, chiefs had to put people wanting to be volunteer firefighters on a waiting list, he said. "Fifteen to 20 years ago, we had as many as 30 members on the department," he said.
Pedercini said it is difficult to determine whether an 18-member fire department is adequate for Williamstown, which has a population of 8,108, according to the 2007 U.S. Census estimate.
"There is no real answer to whether 18 is enough to put out a fire because you would have to ask what size fire?" he said.
In the case of confirmed structure fires, he said, the district always requests mutual aid from other communities until the severity of the fires are determined.
"When we get fires, it has become common practice to get mutual aid from other towns," he said.
The lack of affordable housing in Williamstown is another challenge the fire district has faced in getting members because people have to live in the town to volunteer, he said.
While each fire department has training one night a week, they trade off with each other when it comes to hosting Massachusetts Firefighting Academy courses.
Rancourt said the majority of the time, his New Ashford volunteers go to Lanesborough for academy courses, and the two towns also train together. Durfee said Lanesborough also works with the Cheshire and Hancock volunteer fire departments.
Pedercini said the academy offers classes in Berkshire County in the spring and fall, and different departments will hold different classes.
The Cheshire and Savoy departments are in the midst of at 10-month Firefighter I and II training program funded from a grant received in April 2007 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for recruiting and retaining volunteer firefighters. Besides Cheshire and Savoy, members of five other volunteer or on-call fire departments in Berkshire County are participating in the program.
Pedercini said having more local training would help with the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters, the majority of whom work at other jobs. Durfee said an answer to recruiting and retaining volunteer firefighters may just be to keep applying for grants to use toward advertising and training.
For fiscal 2009, the Lanesborough department has a $70,200 budget.
New Ashford's department has a $7,500 operating budget, and the Williamstown Fire District functions on $446,000, with $92,000 paying to run the town's streetlights.
The Massachusetts Call and Volunteer Firefighters' Association is in the process of putting together a commercial intended to interest people in volunteering for their towns' fire departments.
Lanesborough is one of four Massachusetts towns across the state that will be featured in the commercial.
Pedercini, Rancourt and Durfee all said they are concerned what the future might hold for their departments if the number of volunteers keeps following the pattern over the past decade.
"We're all shorthanded," Durfee said. "I think being a regionalized fire department will happen sooner than you think."
Within the next three to five years, Lanesborough and New Ashford could become one department, he said.
"I don't know how much longer we can keep going, and we may eventually see some sort of regionalization here," Rancourt said.
Pedercini declined to speculate on the future of the Williamstown district.
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