In New Jersey most firefighters and EMS are volunteer and do most of the work from large cities with 50,000-100,000 people to the rural areas of a few 1000. For example in Bergen County with a population of about 1.2 million, located at most 10 miles from NYC, only 3or 4 towns have a full time staffs. We have some volunteer departments running several thousand calls a year, not one career person on staff. In these days of two people working to make ends meet and driving an hour to work it is amazing how this all works. This trend is changing with the amount of training required to become a firefighter or EMS. Slowly more career people are being hired to cover the daytime hours, 6AM-6 PM. Taxes will continue to rise since in NJ each town has their own police and fire department. We have 570 cities, towns, etc in a very small state. Each with its own local government from fire, EMS, police, schools, DPW all repeated many time over. No one wants to give up home rule, and then they wonder why our taxes are so high! We have no county or reginal services; every town does its own thing. Where we live now we have two towns, like a donut, one town in the center and the other surrounding it for a total population of about 10,000. Most times the fire and EMS have to drive through the hole to get to the other side of town for a call!
Funding is a big concern for the volunteers on top of all the training, and calls they have to flip pancakes or stand in the road with a cup asking for money. If you think your costs have gone up think about a fire department, insurance, fuel, maintenance, not to mention a new pumper is $500K and a ladder truck is $1 million and they have to be replaced every 20 years. When emergency services come to your door or sends you a letter asking for $$$, give then something. In the last town I volunteer we went door to door in a town of 15,000 people asking for money. We received money less then 25% of the time. No matter how many times we said it and printed it, they all made the same mistake, thinking all the taxes they paid helped us, WRONG, the town did give us money, enough to pay for the insurance, we had to get the rest.
I have been in 3 departments over the years. My first was a volunteer in a career department while in college. They had a great deal, you volunteered and they gave you a bed. Only down side is you had to answer all calls while in the bed! When you are an 18-22 year kid, that was fun even at 2 AM! The friends and relationships I have made with my fellow firefighters is something I will have for the rest of my life. You will not see a more generous, helping group of people in your life. All you need to do is ask and your have people willing to help you from painting the house to watching your kids. It is a tight nit group that loves to play and work hard. Then again that is why they got into it in the first place I guess, just trying to help. It is not unusual to find grandfathers; dads, sons and daughters from the same family are all in the fire department.
If you live in a small town and they have a volunteer department look into getting involved, the friends you make will be for a lifetime and you get to help your fellow neighbor. Even if you do not want to answer calls, they can always you help in non-firefighting duties.
Ok enough rambling, I will get of the soapbox now, thanks for your ear.
