Getting to Know Your Local Fire Department
Originally published in Plumas News in 2009
by Tom Forster
How much do you know about your local fire department? This column will focus on helping you understand the various fire departments serving your community in Plumas County. Most are fully volunteer, while a few have funding for some full-time or part-time staff. All of them struggle with similar challenges, including recruiting, retention, training, and funding. Many departments have old and outdated equipment, often relying on grants as well as donated or used equipment to function properly.
The good news is that there are some very positive things happening in the Plumas County Fire Service and we will also feature those developments. We are not alone in having mostly volunteer fire departments. Of all the fire departments in America, 69 percent are fully volunteer. There are close to 800,000 volunteer firefighters today.
However, did you know that the first fire departments in America were private? Subscribers paid insurance companies in advance to operate fire departments and in return got a small metal ‘fire mark’ to attach to their building. If the protected structure were to catch on fire, only that insurance company’s fire department would respond, even if another were closer. There was no assistance provided by competing companies. This became a real source of controversy, and led to the eventual creation of public fire departments.
Benjamin Franklin created the Union Fire Company in 1736 in Philadelphia, one of the first public and volunteer firefighting companies in America. The UFC was an association organized for “mutual assistance.” In the 1884 book History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, John Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott described the organization: “Each member agreed to furnish, at his own expense, six leather buckets and two stout linen bags, each marked with his name and the name of the company, which he was to bring to every fire. The buckets were for carrying water to extinguish the flames, and the bags were to receive and hold property which was in danger, to save it from risk of theft. The members pledged themselves to repair to any place in danger upon an alarm of fire with their apparatus. Some were to superintend the use of the water, others were to stand at the doors of houses in danger, and to protect the property from theft. On an alarm of fire at night it was agreed that lights should be placed in the windows of houses of members near the fire in order to prevent confusion, and to enable their friends to give them more speedy and effectual assistance.”
The Volunteer and Combination Officers Section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs completed a national study on the status of the volunteer fire service a few years ago, titled “A Call for Action - The Blue Ribbon Report, Preserving and Improving the Future of the Volunteer Fire Service.” This report illustrated that while volunteer fire departments save local communities over $37 billion dollars a year, they are often under-funded and poorly equipped. Volunteer Fire Departments also have difficulty in retaining volunteers, and are in need of leadership training opportunities for those in officer roles.
This report recommended the following actions be taken:
At the Local level
1. Emphasize the importance of local support for this basic community service.
2. Provide appropriate levels of funding for necessary safety gear and training.
3. Engage in strategic planning that emphasizes volunteer retention.
4. Use mutual aid to offset service and technical deficiencies.
5. Use uniform incident management systems.
6. Use performance measurement to measure and analyze response times, firefighting effectiveness, training and retention rates of volunteer fire departments.
At the State level
1. Emphasize the importance of the state government in developing and promoting disaster planning.
2. Certify fire and emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to comply with basic training standards.
3. Promote regional service delivery where local capabilities and technical expertise are weak.
4. Provide statewide volunteer benefit programs to protect both the firefighter and employer from the risks associated with the volunteer fire service.
And at the Federal level
1. Work to produce a national climate encouraging individuals to volunteer within their local communities.
With those recommendations in mind, how are we doing at the local level? Stay tuned for more on the status of our local fire departments.
Originally published in Plumas News in 2009
by Tom Forster
How much do you know about your local fire department? This column will focus on helping you understand the various fire departments serving your community in Plumas County. Most are fully volunteer, while a few have funding for some full-time or part-time staff. All of them struggle with similar challenges, including recruiting, retention, training, and funding. Many departments have old and outdated equipment, often relying on grants as well as donated or used equipment to function properly.
The good news is that there are some very positive things happening in the Plumas County Fire Service and we will also feature those developments. We are not alone in having mostly volunteer fire departments. Of all the fire departments in America, 69 percent are fully volunteer. There are close to 800,000 volunteer firefighters today.
However, did you know that the first fire departments in America were private? Subscribers paid insurance companies in advance to operate fire departments and in return got a small metal ‘fire mark’ to attach to their building. If the protected structure were to catch on fire, only that insurance company’s fire department would respond, even if another were closer. There was no assistance provided by competing companies. This became a real source of controversy, and led to the eventual creation of public fire departments.
Benjamin Franklin created the Union Fire Company in 1736 in Philadelphia, one of the first public and volunteer firefighting companies in America. The UFC was an association organized for “mutual assistance.” In the 1884 book History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, John Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott described the organization: “Each member agreed to furnish, at his own expense, six leather buckets and two stout linen bags, each marked with his name and the name of the company, which he was to bring to every fire. The buckets were for carrying water to extinguish the flames, and the bags were to receive and hold property which was in danger, to save it from risk of theft. The members pledged themselves to repair to any place in danger upon an alarm of fire with their apparatus. Some were to superintend the use of the water, others were to stand at the doors of houses in danger, and to protect the property from theft. On an alarm of fire at night it was agreed that lights should be placed in the windows of houses of members near the fire in order to prevent confusion, and to enable their friends to give them more speedy and effectual assistance.”
The Volunteer and Combination Officers Section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs completed a national study on the status of the volunteer fire service a few years ago, titled “A Call for Action - The Blue Ribbon Report, Preserving and Improving the Future of the Volunteer Fire Service.” This report illustrated that while volunteer fire departments save local communities over $37 billion dollars a year, they are often under-funded and poorly equipped. Volunteer Fire Departments also have difficulty in retaining volunteers, and are in need of leadership training opportunities for those in officer roles.
This report recommended the following actions be taken:
At the Local level
1. Emphasize the importance of local support for this basic community service.
2. Provide appropriate levels of funding for necessary safety gear and training.
3. Engage in strategic planning that emphasizes volunteer retention.
4. Use mutual aid to offset service and technical deficiencies.
5. Use uniform incident management systems.
6. Use performance measurement to measure and analyze response times, firefighting effectiveness, training and retention rates of volunteer fire departments.
At the State level
1. Emphasize the importance of the state government in developing and promoting disaster planning.
2. Certify fire and emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to comply with basic training standards.
3. Promote regional service delivery where local capabilities and technical expertise are weak.
4. Provide statewide volunteer benefit programs to protect both the firefighter and employer from the risks associated with the volunteer fire service.
And at the Federal level
1. Work to produce a national climate encouraging individuals to volunteer within their local communities.
With those recommendations in mind, how are we doing at the local level? Stay tuned for more on the status of our local fire departments.