Pandemic further stresses rural volunteer fire departments

A chief walks through his fire station in Ringgold, Va.
(Photo by Caleb Ayers, Danville Register & Bee)

Rural fire departments have struggled to get adequate funding, volunteers, employees and equipment, but the pandemic has made the situation worse.

"Rural firefighters have been on the front lines of the pandemic, tackling wildfires and vehicle accidents even as they transport ill and injured residents to hospitals," Aallyah Wright reports for Stateline. "Covid-19’s heavy toll on rural hospitals has extended to emergency responders, meaning firefighters are answering more medical calls than ever before. The increased workload, and the specter of vaccine mandates, has made recruitment even tougher."

The pandemic has traumatized rural firefighters and other health-care providers. "The mass death and suffering of the past 20 months has spawned a surge of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, insomnia and substance use disorder among health care professionals of all kinds," Wright reports. "Answering calls at the homes of relatives, friends and neighbors—which many rural firefighters have had to do—magnifies the pain."

That's on top of difficulties rural fire departments already face, such as poor roads and communications infrastructure, increasingly frequent and more powerful wildfires, and state laws that can require volunteer EMTs to transfer patients to paramedics for more advanced treatment—without compensation.

That's a lot to ask a volunteer to endure, even those who feel called to serve their communities as fire fighters. "Of more than 1.1 million firefighters nationwide, 67% are volunteers who are not paid or receive a minimal amount to cover gas and other expenses, according to a 2021 fact sheet by the National Volunteer Fire Council," Wright reports. "Many of them are in rural America: Nearly 40% of communities with between 5,000 and 9,999 residents had all-volunteer departments as of 2018, according to a tally released last year by the National Fire Protection Association. In communities with between 2,500 and 4,999 people, the percentage of all-volunteer departments was 72%, and 92% in towns of less than 2,500."

Younger people are far less likely to volunteer at fire departments, several firefighters told Wright. Bob Timko, of the National Volunteer Fire Council's recruitment and retention committee, told her that volunteer departments need to work harder to recruit, possibly by partnering with local businesses: "[Young people] aren’t coming in the door ... I would challenge leadership to develop a program or use resources to educate people on what we do."