Volunteer firefighter shortage could have big impact locally
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI (KBSI) – Firefighters in southeast Missouri say volunteer numbers have fallen off drastically.
Local chiefs say their ability to get more people to sign on could mean the difference between life and death.
In Scott County they tell us they aren’t sure if they would have the manpower to get to your home fast in case of a fire.
“I can’t express the importance, it’s the difference of life and death,” said Jeremy Perrien.
He is the chief of the Scott County Rural Fire Protection District.
“We have 42 volunteers, but we have three stations to cover 50 square miles and we’d like to stay around 50-55 volunteers,” he said.
In Millersville, Chief Ray Warner tells a similar story.
“We have about 21 or 22 on our department right now and probably about ten real active ones – ideally I’d like to have 30,” Warner said. “When we have calls, everyone is expected to go if they are available and that’s where the volunteer side has issues because everybody has a job.”
He says the reality is sometimes when there’s a fire there’s no one available to respond.
“We have a thing on our computers, and I’ve created a ‘no responder’ just to track how many times throughout the week or month that our dept has no responders and it’s higher than I like. If I could dwindle that number to zero, we could save a lot more lives.”
Department leaders say when there’s a fire in a in our smallest towns, it’s critical to have volunteer firefighters ready to respond, ideally living not far away. With adequate volunteers they say they can sometimes get to a fire as much as 30 minutes faster than the nearest paid department.
“We have no idea when that emergency will come out it could be during a birthday or something important to you, but you could be making a difference in somebody’s life – it only takes one time to make a difference in somebody’s life,” said Chief Perrien.
Benton’s Deputy Chief Tyler Evans says their numbers are low too and he’s actively trying to recruit.
