Amherst Va. Teens Buck Trend, Become Volunteer Firefighters, join fire department

Feb. 02--When other high schoolers are settling in for the evening, two 17 year olds, Phillip Paul and Kincaid Martin are headed out to work. The job is unpaid, the work grueling, and it sometimes is performed at night or in bad weather.

Despite the constraints on their time and leisure, the experience of being junior members of the Amherst Fire Department is fulfilling.

"It's a rush," Martin said.

"This is what I love to do." Paul said. "I don't want to work anywhere else. This is my job."

Paul and Martin are two of the Amherst Fire Department's four junior members, and as such are bucking the trend of decreased volunteerism affecting fire departments in the county and nationwide.

Martin's father Tom Martin was a former member of the Pedlar Fire Department who would bring his son to the fire station. Paul's exposure to firefighting came through two sources: a friend of his father and a cousin, a female firefighter.

"Every kid when they're little, when they see a firetruck, they want to be a firefighter," Martin said.

The two friends have been in the department since September and have a host of responsibilities. They pack up each truck after a fire and put away the hoses and tools. They will put wheel chocks in place to keep the vehicle from moving. They can respond to car and brush fires but are prohibited from entering burning buildings.

On Sundays when the boys don't have a full day of training, they pull Sunday duty, a time in which they clean up around the station, work on projects and wait for calls. There's bonding time, and perhaps an order of pizza.

No one criticizes the boys for their inexperience. Other members teach them and help them learn, Martin said.

"They want to see you succeed and move on," Paul added. "They don't want you to just sit in this department, they want to see you go to bigger and better things."

The boys' parents are, for the most part, supportive of their sons' volunteerism. Both fathers aren't hesitant in allowing their sons to respond to calls, though the mothers are a little more leery. Friends question the boys' commitment; others express interest.

"If you were into it as much as we are, then they'd understand," Paul said.

In a department whose oldest member is in his seventies, Sidney Jackson, 22, is older than Martin and Paul but still younger than several members. Jackson has been on the Amherst Fire Department for around three months and is waiting to get into a full Firefighter I class. In the meantime, he responds to calls and assists firefighters on the scene such as clearing helicopter landing sites.

Firefighting is an extension of his passion for helping others, he said.

"You have people that run from the fire, and you have people that run to it," Jackson said.The Amherst fire station, mirroring other localities, has experienced a strain in volunteer personnel such that in 2013, a full-time career firefighter was hired to fill a gap in response coverage during daytime weekday hours.

Martin said under the leadership of Trent Richie as fire chief, the department is on the rise.

"We came in, and they welcomed us with open arms," Martin said. "It's a big family."

"When they say it's a brotherhood, it's definitely a brotherhood," Paul added.

In January, the Amherst County Board of Supervisors approved a $500 incentive to encourage recruitment and retention of volunteer emergency personnel.

The incentive is to draw recruitment but not one that the junior firefighters believed to be completely necessary.

"To get people to come in, yeah, it's nice," Martin said.

"But the people who are doing it now? Paul injected. "No. They're committed."

"We want to do this," Martin said.