22News I-Team: Volunteer firefighters needed in western Massachusetts

CHESTER, Mass. (WWLP) – Every 23 seconds, a fire department is called to a fire somewhere in the United States. But, local departments say they simply do not have enough volunteers to keep up with that kind of demand.

In the small Hampden County town of Chester, the fire department is fully volunteer. Henry Fristik is the chief. On the day the 22News I-Team went to Chester to interview him, he got called to a report of a car down an embankment. He had one volunteer firefighter to come help him.

“Today, I’ve probably got eight active members and another three to five on the roster that will show up depending on what their availability is,” Fristik said. “That’s far too low.”

According to the National Volunteer Fire Council, there were 897,750 volunteer firefighters back in 1984. Now, that number is down to 676,900. As those numbers dropped, the number of calls to fire departments nationwide tripled.

“That’s going to continue as the population continues to increase and the population continues to age,” Fristik said. “We are going to continue to see that go up.”

This need for volunteer firefighters is being felt all across western Massachusetts, including in Westhampton.

“You could have two people show up, or 15 people show up,” said Chief Dave Antosz.

Standards say that a volunteer department should be able to respond to a call in 15 minutes. But with fewer volunteers, Chief Antosz said they rely on mutual aid agreements with Easthampton, Northampton and the Hilltown Community Ambulance Association.

Easthampton Fire Chief Christopher Norris is the state’s coordinator for the call and volunteer recruit training program.

“You’re asking these call and volunteers to really go into a dangerous environment that could potentially jeopardize their safety,” said Chief Norris.

He told the 22News I-Team that some rural towns are considering regionalizing their fire departments – meaning one regional department would cover several towns.

Some of the reasons that departments are facing recruitment challenges include increased time demands and more rigorous training requirements. The state is trying to make training requirements a little more manageable. Right now, the state requires 30 hours for medical first responder training, then another 150 hours for firefighter training – all without compensation.

Norris told the I-Team they have started to provide more remote training options. For example, online training is offered on weeknights after people get home from work, and then on weekends, they will go to the academy and do the hands-on and practical training that needs to be done in person.

“We can’t keep looking at things the way we did even 20 years ago,” said Fristik. “We have different generations we are dealing with now.”

Right now, there is a class of 31 call and volunteer firefighters being trained in Springfield. Once they complete training, they will go on to join local volunteer departments. You can learn how to sign up to become a volunteer firefighter here.