Changing communities, lifestyles and regulations threaten Maine’s volunteer fire departments.

LISBON – In most Maine towns 30 years ago, when the fire alarm sounded, workers would come streaming from nearby factories and mills.

Volunteering as firefighters, they would even venture to the next town over if a fire was too big for the town to handle.

Today, Lisbon Fire Chief Sean Galipeau and other chiefs in Maine often worry when a tone comes over the radio: Will enough firefighters arrive in time to save lives and property?

The firefighters that Galipeau and other local volunteer departments have are often well-trained and dedicated, many having served several decades. But their numbers are waning.

Short on volunteers, Galipeau can only fully staff one of the town’s two fire stations. He frequently places a “Now Hiring” sign outside the empty station or by his door at the town hall.

Recent recruitment efforts – including the delivery of applications and promotional DVDs to newly built subdivision homes, an annual volunteer drive during the town’s Moxie Festival and word-of-mouth advertising – have failed to boost the ranks, he says. While hundreds of applications were given out in 2008, less than a handful came back.

So far, the shortage hasn’t resulted in any known loss of life, but Galipeau has had what he considers calls too close for comfort.

Not long ago, a home burned in Lisbon Falls and because the town didn’t have volunteers to staff the station a block away, the response had to come from the station across town as fire consumed the house. It’s a painful example of what Galipeau and others are calling a critical shortage in the state’s public safety system.

“We had a major structure fire and those trucks never got out the door,” he said.

An involved fire, one that’s actively burning, can go rapidly from what might be a minor problem – with damages contained to a room or a single floor – to a disaster and the loss of a home or lives.

The typical house fire, with enough available fuel, can double in size every 30 seconds, Galipeau said.

“It’s scary. It’s very, very scary,” he said. “Every time a tone goes off and it’s a structure fire, the first thing I’m asking myself is, ‘Can I buy a little bit of time?'”

He hopes, first, that no lives are at risk and then, that he will have enough volunteers to adequately fight the blaze.

His dedicated regulars will be there, but their numbers are thin and if they need help, will neighboring towns be able to send aid?

For the first time in the six years he has been chief, Galipeau recently turned down a request for mutual aid in Lewiston, which needed Lisbon’s ladder truck.

“We just couldn’t man the ladder truck, so I had to tell them ‘sorry’,” Galipeau says.

Regionwide shortages

The problem of too few volunteers is constantly being compounded by changes in the economy and the culture, say chiefs in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties.

The fact that most towns no longer have a single mill or small group of industries where most residents work also makes recruiting firefighters more difficult.

“We’re a sleeper community, not a lot of people work here anymore,” Galipeau says. “Or people have two kids in soccer, one in softball, both parents are working – some are working two jobs, three jobs, four jobs and they just don’t have the time.”

After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a steady flow of federal funds funneled into the state and local departments for new equipment, trucks and training. But to have the manpower they need, towns still depend on the aid of their neighbors and “mutual-aid agreements.”

“We can’t do it by ourselves,” says Farmington Fire Chief Terry Bell.

The cost of equipment, the number of people needed to operate it and the training time it takes to become proficient on specialized gear has pushed local departments to work together more, Bell says.

Some departments are even downsizing the amount and variety of equipment they maintain, instead of counting on another department to come in when specialized equipment is needed.

Farmington once maintained five large fire trucks; it now has only three and a squad truck.

Departments are also trying to train together to save time and costs, both Bell and his counterpart in Wilton, Chief Sonny Dunham, say.

Dunham says about half-a-dozen chiefs have formed a fire chief committee to iron out details for a pact on both mutual aid and mutual training.

As part of that plan, each department would know in advance what equipment they need to bring and all departments would be toned simultaneously.

“If Wilton had a structure fire, (hazardous materials) accident or something serious, dispatch would call Jay and Farmington when they did Wilton,” Dunham says.

Now chiefs call for mutual aid after they realize what they are facing and what they may need.

Rumford and Mexico share Chief Gary Wentzell, a 40-year veteran firefighter. Wentzell says even with a paid staff in Rumford, both towns also depend on volunteers. He sees the day the departments could merge more solidly into one, but also a day when the departments in Peru and Dixfield merge, creating an opportunity for a regional department.

Combining forces

Dixfield Fire Chief Scott Dennett, a firefighter himself for 21 years, says his company has shrunk by nearly 50 percent in the last two decades. Fifteen years ago his department had 40 volunteers and 12 were qualified to fight fires from inside a burning building. Today he has a volunteer force of 22, and only six are trained for in-building.

Both federal occupational safety laws and state regulations require there be at least two firefighters outside for every two inside, which also limits the way smaller departments can respond. There is also an annual 100-hour, ongoing training requirement, which is a detriment for some. While chiefs largely agree training isn’t an area they want to compromise, several say it remains a factor in attracting and keeping volunteers.

Anyone who knew what a fire truck looked like could join the fire department 30 years ago, says Ray Broomhall, an assistant chief at the Mexico Fire Department, contrasting with today’s training requirements.

“The population has dropped in the area, but I don’t believe the emergency services should be downsized,” Broomhall says. “The last thing I ever expected to attend was a (suspicious) anthrax emergency or a call on a chlorine car tipping over. We have to train constantly. Firefighters have much more responsibility now.”

In Oxford, Chief Scott Hunter says retaining firefighters after they are trained and keeping them up to speed can also be challenging. And while some firefighters will stay involved for decades, others come and go, Hunter says.

“I might get one out of 20 that will actually be around for awhile,” he says.

Improve pay and benefits

While most volunteer fire departments are no longer strictly volunteer – most offer some kind of financial incentive, no matter how humble – some chiefs say increasing benefits would be helpful in enticing and keeping volunteers.

Some say going to an all-paid system may be the best option.

Oxford Chief Hunter has four per diem firefighters on duty from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. to provide daytime fire and rescue coverage. The workers are available for a quick response in the event of an emergency and will perform maintenance and other tasks during quiet times, Hunter says.

The value of having staff on hand includes faster response times. Both Hunter and Paris Fire Chief Brad Frost say buildings have been saved in their towns within the past year due to a quick response. Hunter says response times can increase five to 10 minutes if there are no firefighters at the station.

But it comes at a cost. Because they work fewer than 24 hours a week, the town doesn’t pay benefits, but per diem pay still accounts for about $192,000 of the fire and rescue budget.

Kimberly Ettinger, the director of communications for the National Volunteer Fire Council, says communities around the country have done many things to help with retention as volunteer numbers nationwide have dropped 7 percent over the last 20 years.

She says communities have offered firefighters pay, property tax discounts and even pension programs. “It’s a nationwide challenge to get more firefighters.”

But money and political will are factors in providing such incentives. In Lisbon, Galipeau says the idea of a property tax discount for the town’s volunteers has, so far, not been able to muster the political support it needs locally or at the state level.

Almost all Maine volunteer departments offer firefighters some kind of reimbursement, either an annual per diem amount or an hourly rate for the time they spend on a fire. Lisbon call force firefighters are paid $1,700 a year if they attend at least 30 percent of the fire department’s activities, be it actual fires or meetings and training, Galipeau says. Other towns offer a per-call payment.

But pay doesn’t guarantee volunteers. Dixfield, which pays its call force members $7.75 an hour – only 50 cents more than minimum wage – is one of many paying towns that still struggle to fill the ranks.

In Peru, volunteers are still purely volunteers. The force there has always voted to not spend money on wages, but instead on equipment, Peru Fire Chief Bill Hussey says. This January the town will consider moving to a payment system for volunteers.

In Livermore, it’s $8 a call. “It’s hardly enough to pay for the gas,” says Chief Don Castonguay. But he notes that he doesn’t think money is the main motivator for most volunteers. “We are not doing it for the money, we are doing it for safety,” says Castonguay, whose town’s entire firefighting budget is $28,000. “It’s our community too.”

Staff writers Eileen Adams, Donna Perry, Ann Bryant, M. Dirk Langeveld and Regional Editor Scott Thistle contributed to this report.