r/Firefighting • u/wolfgang9996 • Mar 27 '25

Volunteer / Combination / Paid on Call I resigned from a volly department

After much deliberation I decided to resign from a volunteer department in my town. Though I don't regret it, I write with a heavy heart. I tried to juggle my full time job, renovating my entire kitchen to the studs while my wife was pregnant (we had a fixer upper that had a mouse infested kitchen that needed a full gut), and do volly.

I made the few calls and the meetings I could, I was only on the department over a year or so. I took fire 1 while I was in between jobs because I got fired right before my son was born. Between all this stress I cracked during the training when we navigated the rooms blindfolded with full kit on. I just couldn't do it to myself anymore, you can't measure adrenaline or cortisol but mine must've been off the charts, and I just told the trainer I tapped out. All the while nursing a neck injury I've had since I was 18 from being rear ended and getting whiplash. Must've been week 4 or 5 of fire 1.

I guess I am just writing this to just state my piece, because I just told my captain I couldn't complete the class and that it was pretty much the end of the road for me as this was going to be my last push while I was unemployed. Right around that time I got a very good job offer about 45 minutes away, eating up even more time in a commute (not to mention a good pay increase and overall better job than the one I got fired from). Maybe this is the universe nudging me where I need to go. I have recurring dreams about the department, the last one a fireman died and the other guys on the department told me to not even bother going to the funeral because I don't care.

It's been heavy for me and objectively I am a bit of a late starter (31 now) and already have existing neck/back injuries. It just sucks to feel like the dream is dead...my dad was career so I feel like I have some of the "mental" game just from my upbringing...but my body just won't carry the load. It's the story of my life. Personality wise I have always fit in with ex military, mechanics, bikers you name it but when the rubber hit the road with this experiment I just cracked...just telling you all not to garner sympathy but just a guy who's telling his truth.

the end

14 Upvotes

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36

u/Beneficial_Jaguar_15 Mar 27 '25

It’s not for everyone. You tried, that’s what counts. Atleast you resigned and didn’t take up a spot from someone else.

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u/Ok_Buddy_9087 Edit to create your own flair Mar 27 '25

Lol. He wasn’t taking up a spot. Days of somebody having to die for a new member to be accepted are well over.

1

u/Beneficial_Jaguar_15 Mar 28 '25

My paid per call station hasn’t taken a new member in 2 years. We have 32 spots full.

-1

u/yungingr Mar 27 '25

Just like everything else in the fire service related to department operations.... that depends.

I know of volunteer departments in my area that still have waiting lists. In fact, the guy sitting 20 feet behind my desk right now at our regular job had to wait almost a year for a spot to open up - on a department in a town of 600.

10

u/Ok_Buddy_9087 Edit to create your own flair Mar 27 '25

I must admit, capacity limits for volunteer departments in 2025 is not something I thought they still had the luxury of doing.

2

u/yungingr Mar 27 '25

Could probably be it's own thread, but I can understand several reasons for it - an already budget-strapped department can't afford to have 30 members needing gear every 10 years, if 15 of them aren't pulling their weight - so the capacity limit helps force them to 'trim the fat' of any T-shirt firemen.

3

u/Ok_Buddy_9087 Edit to create your own flair Mar 27 '25 edited Mar 27 '25

I guess I likened it to the volunteer company I got my start with. The senior members can literally all tell you the name of the man whose death opened up a spot on the company for them to join. Which is the most absurd way to do it, without question. The continued respiration and perfusion of person in their 80s or 90s preventing a person in their 20s from being a functional firefighter is an absolutely wild, and I would go so far as to say negligent, way to run a fire company. (ETA: that company doesn’t operate that way anymore; they’ll take whoever. There is a bylaw about having to live in town, but that’s ignored too.)

I get the need to reserve gear for active members, but the way I look at it is the more members you have, the more active members you’re going to get, regardless of how many inactive members you have, if that makes sense. Restricting your membership to say 30 and getting 15 active members seems short-sighted when you could open it up to 60 and maybe get 30 to 45 active members.

At the end of the day, in an age where recruitment and retention are in a freefall, preventing a willing body from joining because of an arbitrary number somebody made up probably decades ago seems like a dumb idea.

0

u/yungingr Mar 27 '25 edited Mar 27 '25

Oh, I'll absolutely agree with you on the geezers. (they're called "back row r*****s" (yeah, not PC..not my doing) in my department, because at our business meetings, they sit in the back row, bitch about everything, and don't have a clue what's going on). But we remove them from active status, they become "life members" and just come to the business meetings and events - and don't take a spot away from an able-bodied individual.

Our cap comes from our city council - assuming it's somewhat tied to the workman's comp insurance they have to pay on us, but I don't know. We're getting close to it, but in the 15 years I've been on we've never been 'full'.

1

u/Firefluffer Fire-Medic who actually likes the bus Mar 27 '25

In my area it’s so damn cultural and depends on the chief. I’ve watched one department go from 45 volunteers to under a dozen in under a decade. The chief blames national trends in volunteering, but a neighboring department has gained 30% in membership during the same time.

1

u/nicklor Mar 27 '25

Where is that lol I'm in Jersey and every voli department that doesn't lead to a paid job is pretty weak

1

u/yungingr Mar 27 '25

Northwest Iowa. The closest fully career department to me is 45 miles to the east. Department 30 miles north has two paid positions - the chief and one FF that does the day to day maintenance.

My county is just a little shy of 600 square miles, and there's 9 departments (all fully volunteer) covering it - three of which are right on or very near the county line, to where half of their district is in the neighboring county. Just isn't the population or tax base anywhere what it would take to support a paid department.

1

u/nicklor Mar 27 '25

Yeah that's a pretty crazy response area size. Hopefully the volunteer situation lasts. People talk about how 30 years ago we were waitlisted also in my volunteer department. Now we are going on fumes with 2 full time paid FFs.

1

u/yungingr Mar 27 '25

Our district is about 90 sq miles of that - from our station to the furthest point is a solid 15 minute drive. Incidentally, I've got a friend that lives in that area, and I've told him, "if you think you need us, you should have called 5 min ago"

Luckily, most of the departments around are still running rosters in the 20-25 range. We have automatic mutual aid set up for any structure fire, and usually by the time it's over have at least one more department on scene.