The volunteer fire service is like a panda bear. It is black and white . . . and it’s an endangered species.

The world is full of people who live a pastel existence of non-extreme colours. Such people rarely do anything black (really bad) or white (really good). They get up, go to work, come home, have supper, watch a show, and go to bed . . . then do it all over again the next day. They don’t make waves, they don’t stick out like a sore thumb, they are just there. This isn’t a criticism. On the contrary, we need these folks. They’re the ones that make the world turn.

The volunteer service, on the other hand, is far from pastel. I wish I could say we were an all-white, do-no-wrong breed of people, but I know it isn’t true. When volunteer firefighters are white, they are whiter than freshly fallen wilderness snow. When they’re black, they are blacker than a moonless night in the boreal forest.

The white portion of this panda-like service is by far the largest portion, but it goes mostly unnoticed. The black portion is far more attention grabbing. When we screw up, people get injured or killed . . . and whether it’s civilians or our very own, the world knows that we failed.

NIOSH released a report last month about a firefighter fatality that occurred a little over a year ago in Ohio. It’s a black story if ever there was one. A self-made, pressurized water tank exploded, killing a young volunteer instantly. You can read a summary of the NIOSH investigation here. Topping the list of recommendations was this:

Fire departments should ensure that fire suppression equipment is properly designed and safe for its intended use and refrain from using self-made equipment that does not meet applicable safe design standards and practice.

Yes, we certainly should. The problem, as Adam Thiel writes, is that we are “can do,” solution-driven people. We see something we need and we go for it. If we can’t afford it, we find something similar and retrofit it. If we can’t find something similar, we fabricate it. In a perfect world, public emergency services wouldn’t have to beg, borrow, or steal to get equipment that meets applicable standards. But the world is far from perfect.

The scary thing about this black and white story is that it’s everywhere. It isn’t just a small department in Ohio. They just happen to be the ones in the hot seat right now. The panda is alive and well in many (if not most) small volunteer departments, in all its contrasts and contradictions.

The other scary thing is that innovation is often the lesser of two evils. We  convert a FedEx step van into a rescue . . . or we haul our equipment to the scene in the trunks of our cars and the backs of our pick ups. We use a street washer as a tanker . . . or we fight the fire with only a pumper, and spit on it when we run out of water. We wear fifteen year old breathing apparatus . . . or we go without.

I’m not advocating that we pursue a volunteer crusade to save the world at the cost of endangering our firefighters with unsafe work practices, but it reminds me of an old adage about freelancing on the fire ground. Establishing a strong incident command system is the best way to counter it. In a similar manner, the best way to prevent mickey rigging innovations is to provide fire departments with the equipment they need. Small communities are often unable to produce the dollars to do it, and outside help is needed.

I haven’t even addressed the endangered species analogy yet, but it will have to wait. For now, I’ll leave you with a story about Wisconsin firefighters successfully performing mouth to snout rescusitation on a dog.

Call it black or white, it’s at least an example of firefighters stepping up to the plate to provide a service no one else is willing to give.

We are, after all, can-do, solution driven people.

Career guys get it. They get that they are a part of something so much bigger than themselves.

They get that they are a part of something so much bigger than their department!

They get the brotherhood thing. My question is ‘do volunteers get it’?

Sometimes we volunteers talk a good talk but I am not sure we walk a good walk.

Now I know that some of you volunteers do, so ‘stop the hate mail’ and put that energy to helping Firefighters1st spread the word!

Firefighters1st is about the Volunteer Fire Service. It’s about our brothers and our sisters. It is not about you or me.

Firefighters1st is the first non-profit organization solely dedicated to funding and supporting the sustainability of North Americas beloved Volunteer Fire Service.

I cannot tell you how many times I run up against departments only concerned with their department.  ”I want to be on every page of the calendar”; “I want all the money”; “I am number one”; “I matter most”.

Let me tell you what I have learned through my tens of thousands of miles traveled from department to department in North America. Your department is nothing without mine and my department is nothing without yours. We are a volunteer fire service, we are not just a volunteer fire department!

The public we serve drives from town to town and from city to city.  They pass through your area and they pass through mine. ‘We’ join together, ‘we’ train together and ‘we’ fight together to protect ‘them’.  If I am ailing you are ailing. If I am forced to close my doors it is only a matter of time till you are forced to close yours.

We often complain when ‘the public’ does not come to our aid.  We often complain that they do not volunteer. We often complain that they do not give us money.

I complain that volunteer firefighters don’t ask properly and don’t tell their story properly.

Unbeknownst to the Slave Lake Firefighters almost 30 days ago, Firefighters1st decided to help Slave Lake tell their story. In the process, we have raised over $20,000.00 to date for the brave firefighters that lost their homes fighting for their neighbor’s homes.

Can you imagine a more appropriate metaphor for what volunteer firefighters represent in the communities they serve?

I say to date because the giving has not stopped!  Volunteers from all over North America have been buying Slave Lake firefighter shirts honouring the sacrifices of not only the Slave Lake firefighters but the sacrifices of all volunteer firefighters who serve day and night 365 days a year.

We are still receiving donations from citizens and firefighters alike. They donate their hard earned money hoping to acknowledge a strangers sacrifice and make a difference in the lives of those who made a difference!

I received a call from as far away as Australia today …  Yes Australia!! Canadians in Auz will be holding their own Canada Day celebration and raising money for a bunch of Slave Lake volunteer firefighters they have never met half way around the world!

Corporations like The Motorola Solutions Foundation responded to Firefighters1st offering to match the first $5000.00 raised.  Only last week I received the most amazing call from Shell Canada offering $50,000.00 to help us help not only Slave Lake but all Northern Alberta Fire Departments who fight for their communities safety.

This is what Firefighters1st represents. This is what Firefighters1st has built on the back of the hundreds of volunteer departments that have said “what can I do for the fire service today!”

These are volunteer’s who walk the walk and truly understand that they are a part of something so much larger than just their department. This is how Firefighters1st has helped raise over 3 Million dollars for the Volunteer Firefighters it represents.

Imagine what can be built on the backs of thousands of volunteer departments asking the question:

“What can I do to help the volunteer fire service today?”

On Canada day (July, 1st) the Firefighters1st team will be traveling to Slave Lake to participate in the ‘Concert of Hope’ where over 30 bands including Dwight Yoakam will be participating in what is sure to be my most amazing Canada Day ever!  On Saturday on the main stage in front of over 20,000 people I will be presenting Slave Lakes Chief Jamie Coutts a cheque for over $20,000.00!!!

I did not do this, every fire department that has ever participated in The Fire Within & Firefighters1st did this!

I just get to present the cheque, and the best part is this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Chad Sartison

Priddis Volunteer Fire Department

‘Chair’ Firefighters1st

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90% of the communities across Canada are protected 24 hours a day by more than 89,000 volunteer fire fighters.  You read that number correctly, 90%.  These are highly trained, dedicated men and women who are always at the ready to put their lives on hold and respond to the calls that come in over their pagers.  The communities in the Interlake are protected by a large group of these men and women, with volunteer fire halls in several communities in the area.  Without the services of our volunteer departments, municipalities would be hard pressed to provide quality protection to the residents without the costs being prohibitively expensive.  This would force the municipalities to choose between the cost of staffing the halls, and the cost of equipping the halls with suitable equipment.  In spite of the huge dependence of Canadians on these departments, there is a dearth of recognition among the general public (as well as many municipalities) as to how prevalent and important the use of volunteer departments is, and just how much we all depend on these men and women.  “Every time you leave the city limits you are in a volunteer firefighters hands.  [City residents] think well I don’t live in a small town so it does not affect me,”  says Chad Sartison, a Volunteer Firefighter with the Longview Fire Department in Alberta, pointing out that even city folk depend heavily on protection provided by rural volunteer departments “9 out of 10 vehicle accidents involve people from the city driving through a volunteers area.”

Joining a volunteer fire hall is fairly straightforward.  Anyone who is interested, healthy and committed enough to join is usually allowed to, though each department and region will have their own specific requirements.  While each district will do things a little differently, generally new firefighters are enrolled in the level 1 firefighting program which is delivered through a series of evening courses over the span of several months to a year.  This is the same initial program that full-time firefighters in staffed halls will get.  They are also trained to test for, and get their Class 4 drivers license and often supplementary courses like the Hazmat training is also provided.  Most departments will have a regularly scheduled ‘practice’ evening where all the department’s members go out and practice using the equipment so their skills are always sharp when the need arises.  The regular meetings, practices and classes also help build camaraderie among the department members, something most fire departments are well known for.

Contrary to a common assumption, ‘volunteer’ does not mean ‘free’.  Volunteer fire fighters are paid-on-call employees of the municipalities they work for.  They receive a standard hourly wage for all calls they respond to, and they are often paid for attending meetings and their practice sessions.  As paid staff, they are protected by Workers Compensation and are eligible to receive those benefits should they be injured on the job.

The risks faced by volunteer firefighters are varied and serious, some obvious and others not so clear.  The obvious risks are injuries from responding to a call.  Everyone knows fires are dangerous and the danger is compounded by the fact that volunteer firefighters are more likely to be fatigued and overworked based on the lack of relief at long drawn out fires.  “One of the biggest differences between full-time and volunteer departments is how quickly most full-time departments get relief,” says Brad Patton, Fire Chief for the Wellington Center Ontario Volunteer Fire Department “after just one or two hours, it’s back to the hall because relief has arrived. Volunteer firefighters stay until the incident is over, so it’s not unusual for me to work with the same firefighters for 10 hours or longer on a major alarm.”

There is also the emotional toll of responding to tragic fires or accidents.  Firefighters are often faced with seriously injured victims, and occasionally fatalities at a call. This exposure can have serious and long reaching psychological effects on those at the scene.  Most municipalities will provide additional support to those on the scene of a particularly difficult call, and often the tight knit nature of the departments provides a ‘group support’ environment for working through this type of trauma.  Lastly there are the long term health risks of firefighting.  The toxins in the air at a fire have long been known to cause lung disease and certain cancers in those repeatedly exposed.  Workers Compensation in Manitoba now recognizes several types of cancer as ‘workplace injuries’ for both professional and volunteer firefighters.

Volunteer departments operate very differently than a staffed fire hall in a large city.  With a staffed fire hall, firefighters are paid hourly and are physically at the fire hall all the time.  When the call comes in and the alarm goes off, the firefighters on staff at the hall hop on the trucks and respond to the fire.  With a volunteer department however the entire department is at home living their lives when the call comes in.  Dispatch will issue a call and every firefighter’s pager will go off followed by the dispatcher explaining a basic outline of the emergency.  From that moment on a well rehearsed dance takes place in the homes of the many volunteer firefighters across town.  Dinners are dropped, sleep is abandoned, clothes are thrown on, kids are dropped off with neighbors, special events are interrupted, plans are abandoned, and the firefighters jump into their vehicles and race for the hall.  They know too well that seconds matter, and they shave as many as they can off their response time on their way out the door.  They do this with no idea how long they will be gone.  A call can last twenty minutes, or a call can last 18 hours.  For the volunteer firefighter, life outside the call simply stops for that stretch of time.  For their family, life goes on in their absence.  It takes a lot of character to devote oneself to being a Volunteer Firefighter, and our departments in the interlake do not disappoint.    “Where else do you find a group of people that are literally willing to do anything on a moment’s notice when a page comes in?” asks Sohan.  “Fire fighting, flood fighting, search and rescue, vehicle extrication and removing fluffy from a tree,” any time, day or night, the men and women on our departments are minutes away from your side.

More than just volunteering to be a firefighter for the time they are actually at a call, these firefighters actually volunteer to live a certain lifestyle.  Plans are made with the possibility of a call coming in at the back of everyone’s mind.  Snacks are left in vehicles in case a call comes in before a meal so the firefighter can have a quick bite to eat if need be.  A quick change of clothes and the car keys are always handy in case of a middle-of-the-night call.  Back up child care is always at the ready in case of a call.  In spite of the term ‘volunteer’ and the suggestion that it is a ‘come if you want to’ type of position, most men and women on the departments take their positions very seriously, and only miss calls under the most impossible circumstances.  When asked if he considered sitting out the Christmas Day call Sohan replied “I did not even think about not responding.  When you commit to the Fire Department you commit to answering the call whenever it comes in,” most volunteer firefighters share the sentiment and do not see their positions as ‘optional’.

The next time you hear the sirens going off or see the trucks pulling out of one of the Interlake’s many stations, take a moment to consider the men and women on that truck.  Consider the fact that it is not just a volunteer position that they occasionally fill, but rather a lifestyle they have chosen to live, in order to help protect their community.  They knowingly take great risks, give up time and freedoms, and choose at times to put their family second in order to help another family in need.  Think about their families who are often fiercely supportive of this lifestyle and the commitment they too demonstrate to the position.  The men and women who volunteer for our fire halls do all this while also passionately fundraising both for their signature charities (Muscular Dystrophy Canada and the Burn Fund) and for fire hall improvement and equipment they need.  These men and women live among you, work among you, and at your time of need would be at your doorstep in the middle of the night at the drop of a hat (or scream of a pager).  That is the true nature of our volunteer firefighters and departments, one we can all take some measure of comfort in, as the protection they provide is unmatched and spans our entire country.

With a quick glance over my shoulder I said, “We’re qualified volunteers.” It was a defensive, smart aleck response, but at least he was spared a black eye from one of my captains.

Qualified volunteers? In retrospect, it was a bold claim under the circumstances. There were twenty rail cars in tangled heaps, some of them burning. A truck driver was dead. A propane tanker had exploded before we arrived, sending a ball of fire into the night sky. The technician, though lacking in etiquette, only wanted to know if we could do the job, which was to protect six stranded cars of styrene monomer. I was green, but hey, I had a truck full of water and a crew that could pull hose, so what other qualifications did I need?

That’s a good question. I should ask it more often.

I’ve been to hazmats since then where I knew my qualifications didn’t extend past the end of my binoculars. Other times, like at a galloping crown fire last year, I was only qualified to monitor the flanks until MNR arrived. But these should be no-brainers. No one likes to wade through liquid hydrogen, or get fricasseed.

On the other hand, when the neighbor’s house catches fire, we are more inclined to push the limits. It could be because we like the neighbors, and we know they really like their home. Maybe it’s because we think we should be able to fight any fire from the inside out. Or maybe we just hate standing on the sidelines while the main attraction burns.

I heard a saying that all new recruits are given a full bag of luck. They also receive an empty bag, which they must fill with experience. To survive, they must fill the empty bag before the full bag runs out. The problem is, for some the bag of luck runs out faster than for others.

Incidentally, one of my first priorities with new recruits is to stamp out all reliance on luck – or worse, invincibility. Occasionally a firefighter suffers from Superman Syndrome, but it usually doesn’t take long to find out that our world is much darker than Superman’s.

I’m not a defeatist. We do need to know when we are qualified for the job of the day. But we must know when we aren’t. Being qualified is as much about resources as it is about training. Do we have enough people on the scene for what we are attempting? Is the pumper our only water supply at the moment? What will we actually gain by going in?

Rumor has it that one big city department in Ontario can put enough people on a fire to stomp it out with their boots. They don’t even need water. That’s probably an urban legend, but we all know that urban and rural resources can be as different from each other as aerial towers are from pack pumps. When it’s decision time, and our people’s lives are in our hands, we need to remember that.

So what happened on that dark, snowy night by the railroad tracks those many years ago? After smoothing out our ruffled feathers, we kept an all night vigil over six cars of styrene. Yes, we did hate to watch those other railcars burn in the distance. But the hazmat technician had one thing right: we didn’t need to go out there and save anything. Did we convince him that we were “qualified volunteers?” I don’t know. I do know that, like it or not, we were (and still are) the only fire department within a hundred kilometres in any direction.

I also know that, hazmat or house fire, I had better be qualified to bring all of my people safely home at the end of the day.

Good judgement comes from experience.

Good experience comes from someone else’s bad judgement.

Author unknown

**The above article originally appeared in the Web Exclusives section of the Firefighting in Canada website in April, 2008 **

I have just returned from a ten-day trip to Pennsylvania where I had the pleasure of visiting fire companies throughout the state.  I spoke in front of a few of them, went on a call or two with a few of them and had a beer or two with all of them.

As with everything in America, it is amazing how obviously different and yet strikingly similar our two countries often are. Perhaps there is no better illustration of this than while I was purchasing a US iPhone (insert rant about extortionate Canadian cellular company practices here) in an Apple store in Lancaster when a lovely 80-year-old lady heard me paying with a Canadian credit card.  As she approached, walker and all, she politely asked me how I like our “communist health care system”.  Her words not mine.

You see, my travels coincided with the passing of Obama’s new health care bill, so in a staunchly conservative state like Pennsylvania, it was difficult to walk ten feet without somebody asking about Canadian healthcare.

I explained to her that as a cancer survivor I owed my life to our healthcare system and as such found it difficult to criticize.  I expounded that there is much to be improved upon in our system, but in the end I could not imagine such a basic privilege like healthcare being withheld.

She politely grabbed my hand smiled and said that she would pray for me.  I think she was referring to my cancer and not my communist healthcare beliefs, but given the passion with their healthcare debate, I may never be sure.

So there, in the soft-spoken words of an eighty-year-old lady, laid the primary difference between Canadian and US healthcare, but perhaps more to the point of this article, the difference between the United States fire service and ours ‘entitlement”.

Generally, volunteer fire departments in the states are called fire companies and they are actual companies, not government entities.  They survive almost entirely on the donations of their communities and if they were not to offer good service or manage their books correctly, they would go bankrupt and the community would go unprotected.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let me paint a picture for comparison in Pennsylvania.

Alberta covers 255,541 square miles and has approximately 390 volunteer fire departments and 9000 volunteer firefighters.  In comparison, Pennsylvania is roughly one-fifth the size covering 46,055 square miles and has approximately 2300 volunteer fire departments and 70,000 volunteer firefighters.

The demographics are astounding, and why not? Pennsylvania’s first volunteer fire company was formed in 1736 by none other than Benjamin Franklin himself.  Historically, departments were positioned roughly the distance at which a horse would get tired at full gallop each way. This is obviously largely impractical given today’s technology, but in a country where patriotism and tradition are valued above all and with many volunteer fire companies approaching their 200th anniversary, fire tradition definitely resists practicality.

The purpose of my trip was to expand the reach of The Fire Within, its calendar initiative and the principles it stands for.  I must admit to being surprised at how quickly and passionately fire companies embraced The Fire Within concepts of awareness and branding.  Watching as they eagerly jostled to be the first departments photographed in the first US calendar, it wasn’t long before I began to realize why.

At first blush, the departments I visited resembled ours here in Alberta in almost every way. Chiefs complained about the usual troubles with recruitment and retention of volunteers.  They mused about the challenges with time and funding and the expanding pressures that come with the increased expectations of a modern day community.

The key to this article, however, lays in our differences, not our similarities.

The average call volume of the departments I visited was in excess of 500 calls per year.  The number of members averages 30-40 firefighters per department including their chief.  All were 100% volunteer and would consider payment of any kind an insult to the traditions their companies were founded on.

Funding for both capital acquisitions and annual operational budgets comes, for the most part, from fundraising and community donations.  One hall I visited managed to raise over $900,000.00 for a new aerial platform from a community of 9400 in just under four months.  This was in addition to the usual $250,000.00 raised annually to run the fire company.

For me, coming from a department in an affluent community where raising $10,000.00 can be a 2-year proposition and the reality of 80 to 90 calls a year at times seeming an inconvenience, statistics like these seem unbelievable.So, as I watch my department and others here in Canada push for greater volunteer remuneration and muse about calling ourselves “paid on-call or part-time firefighters”, I can’t help but wonder, what is the primary difference between our neighbors to the south and us here in the great white north?

In one word “Entitlement”.

As citizens, we feel entitled to the fire protection we receive. As volunteer firefighters, we feel entitled to the government funding required to provide it.

For the record, I personally happen to feel we are entitled to fire protection here in Canada.

However, the reality is our sense of entitlement has built apathy in our firefighters and more importantly in our public.  This sense of entitlement has painted our beloved fire service into a corner that, as time goes on, is proving more and more difficult to get out of.

Although apathy and entitlement are growing in the United States, the simple fact remains that volunteers are responding to in excess of 500 calls a year and are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from their communities.  If they don’t, the alternative is simple – they won’t have a fire department, and let me tell you, out of necessity comes invention.

As independent fire companies, they understand the importance of community awareness, branding and education. They understand that in the absence of good customer service, balanced books and a meaningful connection with their community, 200 years of tradition would crumble underneath them, and no Chief wants that to happen on his watch.

For the most part, firefighters seem to understand that there is more to being a firefighter than just running into a burning building.  Although at times begrudgingly they happily go door to door checking smoke detectors, extolling the virtues of fire prevention and fundraising.  They are content in the knowledge that these activities will guarantee that their fire company will be fighting fires 200 years from now.   After all, when it comes down to it, they joined for the same reasons we joined and their fellow volunteers joined almost 200 years earlier: to make a difference in our community.

My hope here in Canada is that even if my fellow departments don’t embrace The Fire Within, they will embrace the principles of community behind it because if we don’t funding will continue to shrink and volunteers will grow more scarce.

It is a volunteer firefighters job to do a reasonable amount of fund raising as long as it values their time and relates and educates the public they serve.

It is as much a volunteer firefighters job to promote fire safety and get in front of the children who will one day be volunteers themselves as it is to save them in their times of need.

Ultimately it is the chiefs job to make sure their firefighters know their job because contrary to what we believe there are plenty of volunteers out there wanting to be a part of something larger than themselves they just may not know it yet!

Chad Sartison  The Fire Within