MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Firefighting is among the most important jobs in any community, and it’s become harder than ever to recruit new firefighters, according to one of the state’s leading experts.
Mark Lambert, Fire Training Director for the State Fire Training Academy and Director of WVU Fire Service Extension, discussed the challenges on “The Morning Spiel” this week on 103.3 WKMZ in Clarksburg.
“It’s an issue, but it’s certainly not an issue anyone should panic about,” Lambert said. “It’s not only the United States. It’s worldwide — anybody that has kind of the same volunteer model.
90 percent of firefighters in West Virginia are volunteer, and the average age is increasing, Lambert said. Meanwhile, longer work schedules and lengthy commutes for workers are among the issues Lambert cited that hold adults back from becoming volunteer firefighters in communities that could use the help.
“Modern life is kind of putting pressure on the system as it is today with jobs and families and people commuting to work,” he said. “There are times of day when it’s harder to find a volunteer in this area or that area.”
One of the issues is getting interested recruits enough training hours if they’re also working full-time.
“How do you get those hours into somebody off the street if they’ve only got 10 hours a month or 20 hours a month?” Lambert said.
Some cities are able to staff full-time firefighters. Others are able to engage in a paid-on-call system that pays firefighters a small amount if they are called out to a fire. Still, 62 percent of the firefighters in the U.S. are fully volunteer, according to Lambert.
“You have to have a strong sense of community and want to help the others in your community,” he said. “If you think back, most of us if you grew up in West Virginia or most places, i you lived in an area that had a volunteer fire department, sometimes the fire hall was the de factor city hall or town meeting place if there was an emergency, but if there was a party [too] or whatever.”
One possible solution that Lambert recommends is getting training hours in when you’re kid — if you’re interested. WVU Fire Service Extension offers a Junior Firefighter Camp every June at WVU’s Jackson’s Mill that aims to help train interested teenagers in a safe practice environment at their own pace.
“If you get them in early and get them trained when they are 16, 17, or 18 years old, then they are way more likely to stay around or join a fire department no matter where they are as they get older,” Lambert said.
Lambert is encouraged by last year’s camp, where more than 70 percent of the junior firefighters indicated in a survey they planned to serve in a local fire department in their hometowns.
“Having been a junior firefighter a long time ago, I’d have given anything for an opportunity for a junior camp to go to,” he said.
Lambert also praised the strong turnout of young woman at these camps — more than 40 percent of the class usually — as a reminder that the recruiting net must be cast as wide as possible. He also noted that you can help out your community even if you can’t run into a burning building.
“If you can’t be a firefighter, maybe you can work as support personnel at the station,” Lambert said.
Story by Alex Wiederspiel