Ky. Fire Dept. Experiences Big Decrease in Volunteers in the Airport-Sorgho Fire Department

April 04--When Pat Thompson joined the Airport-Sorgho Fire Department in 1985, he was 18, and most of the other firefighters were just a few years older.

Today, Thompson, the department's chief, is 46. And most of his firefighters are just a few years younger.

"The demographics have really changed," he said Tuesday. "We've lost a lot of young firefighters, and our average age just keeps getting higher."

Thompson, who retired two years ago after a 20-year career with the Henderson Fire Department, now serves as the volunteer firefighter recruitment and retention program coordinator for the Kentucky Fire Commission, along with his duties as chief of the Airport-Sorgho volunteer department.

Part of his job is helping small fire departments find ways to recruit and retain volunteers.

"We're in good shape at our station," Thompson said. "We have 35 firefighters, and I have applications on my desk from others who want to join. But we're the exception, not the rule."

Just a few years ago, he said, "We had nearly 22,000 volunteer firefighters across Kentucky. Now, it's down to around 17,000. We've lost 25 percent of our firefighters in a very short time."

Part of the problem is the economy, Thompson said.

A lot of younger people are working more than one job these days to stay afloat, he said.

And those with kids are finding that their children are involved in more activities that require more family time.

And in places like McLean County, Thompson said, a high percentage of the population works outside the county.

They're simply not available to fight daytime fires.

"Firefighting used to be a family thing," Thompson said. "You'd have three or four families in a department. You'd have several generations of each family involved. We don't see that as much now."

Rick Cox, former area manager for Kentucky Emergency Management and a former chief of volunteer firefighters in Hawesville, said there are more choices for young people in how they spend their free time today, and volunteer firefighting is falling by the wayside.

"Time is the problem," Cox said. "The social environment is such that you have many more options to keep yourself busy than 20 or 25 years ago."

"At our department, we've tried the approach of creating a junior firefighters program, trying to bring people in at a younger age and train them so they're not a liability, turning 18 and not being trained," said Jimmy VanCleve, McLean County Central District chief.

But retaining volunteers is also a critical problem, VanCleve added.

"The attrition rate is very, very high on any firefighters we get," VanCleve said. "For every 10 firefighters I get, three years from now, if I've got one of them active, I've done really, really well."

"In areas that don't have more than a couple dozen runs a year, people lose interest," Thompson said. "Our department has 450 runs a year, and you feel like you're really contributing to the community."

In some small counties, volunteers belong to several departments, he said.

That works, Thompson said, until there's a major fire that several departments respond to at the same time.

The shortage of volunteer firefighters is a national one.

In 2011, the Firemen's Association of the State of New York said that the number of volunteer firefighters in that state had declined steadily during the past two decades -- from nearly 100,000 in the 1990s to a little more than 88,000.

In 2008, David Finger, with the National Volunteer Fire Council, told The Associated Press that several states had passed laws to encourage people to become volunteer firefighters by making it easier for volunteers to pull away from work and to keep employers from punishing employees who leave to fight fires or respond to emergency calls,.

West Virginia, the story said, had lost about 2,000 volunteer firefighters in the past eight years.

In 2005, USA Today said that almost three-fourths of the nation's 1.1. million firefighters are volunteers -- and two-thirds of all fire departments are volunteer.

The number of volunteer firefighters nationally, the story said, had dropped 10 percent in the past 20 years.

In Northeast Pennsylvania, it said, there had been 300,000 volunteers 30 years earlier. In 2005, there were only 72,000.

And it's not just an American problem.

Earlier this year, the Western Australia Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services Association reported that the number of volunteer bushfire fighters there had fallen to critically low levels.

"We're allowed to have 40 members on our books at each brigade, but in general terms, you'd probably find between 10 and 15 is about the normal number of active volunteers; the ones who are prepared to turn out or respond on most occasions," executive officer Max Osborn said in a news story there.

In 2011, the story said, there were 33,427 emergency service volunteers working across Western Australia. More than 3,500 of those were not around a year later, the story said.

"It's a problem everywhere," Thompson said. "It's one we have to find a way to address because it's not going away."

McLean County News Editor Dariush Shafa contributed to this story.