Across the state, small towns are dealing with a shortage of volunteer firefighters. “We need more people,” said John Johnson, Second Lieutenant at the Manchester Township Volunteer Fire Company.
Only 8.3% of New Jersey fire departments are staffed by career officers, according to New Jersey Division of Fire Safety statistics. The rest are volunteers, or a combination of both.
“It’s been getting worse. We now reach emergent conditions,” said Bob Morris, vice president of the New Jersey State Fire Chiefs Association. “Small town fire departments are going out of business. Members don’t have time for training requirements and the demographics of small towns are different.”
A report released last month by the Special Task Force on Volunteer Retention and Recruitment gave several recommendations on expanding the ranks of volunteer firefighters. These included “opening up the vocational schools to teach firefighter 1, firefighter 2 and the availability of EMT training through vocational or high school, so when they graduate high school they have a career they can run right into,” said Joseph Hankins, chairman of the taskforce and a volunteer firefighter in Manchester.
“If a trend continues and we move away or lose volunteers, it has a significant budgetary impact on municipalities that can’t afford it, particularly when you’re operating with a 2% property-tax cap,” said Michael Cerra, executive director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities.
