Volunteers in short supply for rural fire departments

In addition to struggles with rising equipment costs, increases in emergency calls and keeping up with new training, Arkansas volunteer fire departments are facing challenges with recruiting new members.

It’s a trend the state’s 900 volunteer departments have seen for the past decade, and as current volunteer firefighters age there is a smaller pool of replacements, said Travis Cooper, secretary for the Arkansas Rural and Volunteer Firefighters Association.

The average age of an Arkansas volunteer firefighter is between 60 and 65, according to Cooper.

“Our volunteers are eager to respond to calls, but recruiting new volunteers is difficult,” he said. “I still get young people who are not aware of the concept of volunteering. They think someone is going to get paid to do it. They don’t realize the individual who works at Wal-Mart or somewhere else is also a volunteer firefighter.”

Curtis Miller, the fire chief of the Philadelphia Volunteer Fire Department in Craighead County, recently held a recruitment drive to re-man his department of about 20 members. He posted information on the department’s Facebook page and talked with others.

It worked. Miller said four new firefighters joined his department as a result.

“It’s hard recruiting,” said Miller, who has been with the Fire Department for 40 years. “A lot of people, when they come in, are expecting excitement all the time. They think they will be putting out a lot of fires.

“When they find out it’s more humdrum, and they’re not going on fire calls often, they get out. Unless they are vested in their communities, they’re not interested enough to stick with it.”

Those who are interested may not be able to volunteer, Cooper said.

Many potential recruits leave rural towns for jobs in cities and are not available to battle fires, and others who remain in their communities may have two jobs and little time to volunteer.

Carlisle said the fire was difficult to fight because of the proximity, age and composition of the structures. She also pointed out that none of the houses had sprinkler systems installed, which could have tempered the blaze.

“We had a big fire immediately,” she said.

Dilick’s house was built in the 1940s. He said the old wood that was used for the foundation apparently doomed the home from the first spark.

The four homes that were destroyed were close to each other — so close that resident Sandra Luman said a long wooden deck connected three of them.

Luman had just finished remodeling her own home weeks before the fire. Her neighbor, Tina Haney, was planning to complete her move-in Sunday. Haney had been living in the house for several weeks while working on permanently moving herself and her family into the lake house, once used as a vacation home.

“A lot of our belongings were already inside the house. Irreplaceable items, like baby photos of my kids, are just gone. We’re devastated, but the most important thing is that no one was hurt,” Haney said.

Pillars of smoke still rose from large piles of debris the next morning as homeowners assessed the extent of the damage under the light of day. Charred bits of wood and warped pieces of metal were scattered about the road, as CenterPoint Energy and Entergy Arkansas worked to secure gas mains and power lines.

The extreme heat melted cars parked too close to the flames and melted siding and doors of surrounding houses. Even the needles of a tall pine towering over the property were discolored as a result.

“It was hot, so, so hot. You couldn’t stand to be on the patio of my house because of the extreme amount of heat,” Craig Davis said.

Dilick and Davis attempted to fight the fire with garden hoses before quickly discovering they were no match for the flames. Once they realized that, they began dousing surrounding houses with water and alerting neighbors to evacuate immediately. Some residents were able to flee in vehicles, but the majority of those living in the area were essentially trapped, the only available escape route being by boat.

People passing by on boats began to stop at the docks near the homes when they realized the structures were on fire. For nearly 30 minutes, Lane Stovall, his uncle and two men he works with helped alert those in nearby homes and evacuated them via boat.

Stovall and his uncle were returning to their cars after viewing the fireworks on the east side of Lake Hamilton when they saw smoke and an ominous glow from Kleinshore Road.

“I was dropped off on the dock and started on what I guess was the south end, just knocking on doors, trying to get people out,” Stovall said. “My co-worker, Robby Shultz, was doing the same thing from the opposite direction.”

Residents are now thinking about what to do next.

Dilick, who has lived in the area for about 11 years, has no plans to relocate. A disaster that could have easily destroyed morale has brought the already closeknit community even closer, he said.

Luman added: “We’re OK. It can be rebuilt. It can be all right.”