These alarming shortages come amid more service demands driven by rising medical calls attributed largely to the state’s growing senior population.
Volunteer firefighter Clare Doran puts on her gear at the Glen Ellyn Volunteer Fire Company headquarters on Aug. 30, 2023.
: men and women who, like Justi, leave their homes and jobs at any moment to respond to house fires and car crashes, medical emergencies and natural disasters. board member. “The county and the state are going to need to look at this because the public safety is going to be impacted.” All this could put hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents in the dangerous position of having to wait longer for help to arrive.
“It just seems to be getting harder and harder to get the younger generation to step up and donate their time,” said Eric Lancaster, fire chief in the central Illinois town of Girard, population 1,785. “It’s definitely been a struggle. And it is definitely getting worse.” Then there’s the simple reality that being a volunteer firefighter is demanding on the person and their families. Emergency pagers can go off during family dinners and at 2 a.m., on Christmas morning and at a school recital.
Emergency medical training, also not required, can take another six months, and is often crucial given that medical calls account for about 70% of the incidents Illinois fire departments respond to each year. Richard Arehart, 49, wanted to be a firefighter as a kid but instead became a banker. Nearly three years ago, he saw an online ad looking for volunteers and moved his family to Glen Ellyn so he could make his childhood dream come true.
The west suburban fire department is one of the few in the Chicago area that still relies almost entirely on volunteers. And with about 60 members, it’s thus far managed to avoid the shortages that have plagued other volunteer departments. About 35 people showed up to a recruitment open house earlier this month, said Matt Andris, second assistant chief. Seven submitted applications to join, with more expected.There are, of course, other contributing factors.
“We can’t let off the accelerator,” Chief Chris Clark said. “We have to continue to recruit the way we do. That’s just a fact for any volunteer organization.”For the volunteer fire service to survive, recruitment needs to be the focus of every person in the department, said Steve Hirsch, a volunteer firefighter in Kansas and chair of the“That’s our success,” he said. “It’s all those who wear red helmets out there recruiting friends and bringing names to us all the time.
Even Glen Ellyn, with its 60-member roster, still needs to augment its volunteer force by paying contractors to staff a fire engine during those hours. “We’d have to pick up the tab after three years, and we can’t afford to do it,” said Swan, who noted that the department tried and failed last year to persuade residents to pass a tax increase to pay for daytime help.
. “But you have to throw something out there as a benefit. The bigger conversation is coming at us, and it’s going to be a lot of money.” In Peoria Heights, trustees in the town of 5,900 have been embroiled in an ongoing debate over the future of their volunteer fire department, which, like many, is short on volunteers.
Assistant Chief Alex Justi puts away a hose after testing engine pumps and hoses in the Dalzell Grade School parking lot on Aug. 31, 2023. A few high school seniors have expressed an interest in taking emergency medical classes and volunteering at the department. But that wouldn’t be until next summer, he said, and “we don’t know if we could hold it until then.”Two hospitals in the area closed this year — one in Peru, the other in Spring Valley — and the fallout has hit Dalzell and surrounding departments hard, exacerbating their staffing woes as ambulance crews are now tied up with longer transport times to and from hospitals.
All six said they were concerned about the department’s future and perplexed that no one in town seemed to care about the dire circumstances it faced.
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