Courage, Commitment & Community

Volunteer Fire Departments Welcome New Members

Story by Melanie Jones

In times of crisis in rural communities, the first people to arrive on the scene are often friends and neighbors who sacrifice their time because they want to help, not draw a paycheck. They put out the fires. They drive the rescue vehicles. They save lives.

According to the National Volunteer Fire Council, nearly 19,000 of the nation’s 29,452 fire departments are all-volunteer, and the number of those volunteers has been shrinking. In 2020, the number of volunteer firefighters reached a record low. On top of that, more than half of those volunteer firefighters in smaller departments are aged 40 or older, and 34% are over 50.

But the tide may be turning. The number of volunteer applications through NVFC increased from 31,309 in 2022 to 38,696 in 2023, the latest year for which data is available.

Kim Hilsenbeck is marketing director for the State Firefighters’ and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas, a trade association representing fire and emergency services workers for the past 148 years. She says the number of applications for volunteer firefighters through the website volunteerfirefighter.org dropped in Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is rebounding. In 2020, that number was 1,992. It dropped as low as 566 in 2022, but by 2024 it was back up to 1,711.

Eyes on the Future

Kim wants to challenge the idea that every volunteer fire department is struggling for new volunteers. In many places that is the case, she says, but departments in other areas are thriving, even growing. “It’s not a blanket statement,” she says of the idea of a shrinking volunteer force. “It’s a little more nuanced than that.”

Kim says Texas volunteer fire departments overall need to think about the future and replenishing their ranks. “Some are doing a phenomenal job pulling in volunteers,” she says. “Others could use a little help.”

In a way, it all comes down to marketing. “Departments need to have a toolbox of marketing and outreach methods, from social media to word of mouth to banners on the firehouse lawn,” she says. “Fundamentally, it involves understanding and communicating with people.”

Social media is absolutely 1 tool departments must use to recruit younger members, she says, including posting videos to TikTok and Instagram. Kim recently developed a social media seminar to help smaller, more rural departments better use social media platforms as a marketing tool.

Other options to attract new, younger volunteers are for departments to partner with local school districts to offer firefighter academies and to allow students to gain volunteer hours needed for graduation by working at a fire department.

A Healthy Mix

Older firefighters aren’t necessarily a bad thing, says Steve Hirsch, NVFC chairman. At 62, Steve is the training officer of the fire department in Sheridan County, Kansas. He recalls a man once asking him the age of the oldest firefighter in his department. He told the man 93. The man laughed and said, “No, I mean the age of your oldest firefighter who’s still responding to calls.” The man was shocked when Steve again replied, 93.

“But you know, that was out of a station that might get 1 or 2 calls a year,” Steve says. “He’d grown up in that area his entire life. He knew where every hole and every gate was in his neighborhood. He wasn’t out there pulling a hose or doing the entry, but he was able to drive a pickup. It worked out nice.”

“Departments need to have a toolbox of marketing and outreach methods ... Fundamentally, it involves understanding and communicating with people.” —Kim Hilsenbeck, State Firefighters’ and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas marketing director

Steve, who has led fire training in Kansas for 25 years through the state association, sees the benefits of having a wide age range of firefighters. “The departments I go into that are really good departments have a nice mix of older and younger people,” he says. “The older people keep the younger ones from making the mistakes that we’ve all made, and the younger ones have the stamina to get stuff done.”

It’s important to keep recruiting, he says, because fire departments are vital to a community’s safety, and firehouses are often a hub for gatherings and activities. “What is a community going to do when they don’t have a fire department?” Steve says. “That’s probably the newest, biggest building in that town of 80-some people. People use that fire station for all sorts of events in the community. A lot of our small towns have lost their school, they’ve lost their grocery store. A lot of them have lost their banks. Some of them don’t have cafes anymore. So the fire department becomes the glue that binds that community together. And, you know, you lose 1 more glob of glue, and pretty soon, things just fall apart.”