Introduction
Volunteer Fire Department refers to a fire department that comprises of volunteers charged with the responsibility of performing fire suppression as well as other emergency services related to this purpose with a local and urban jurisdiction. As opposed to the career fire departments, the volunteer firefighters are not fully compensated for the services they offer to the local and urban community, but they are recruited and work only voluntary basis. However, some members of the volunteer firefighters multitask as both full time compensated career firefighters as well as volunteers. According to a recent report released by the National Fire Protection Association, about seventy percent of the firefighters in the United States are volunteers. Additionally, National Volunteer Fire Council is responsible for the representation of the emergency and fire departments at the national level, the provision of information, advocacy, programs, and resources that are used to support the firefighting volunteers. According to Department of labor, the volunteer firefighters in the United States might be partly compensated for benefits such as life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, service awards, pension plans, or nominal fees based on call or shift considerations, but not according to productivity of the volunteers (United States Fire Administration, p. 23).
According to the Congress, the protection of rural areas and the rural communities from fire is a phenomenon of national interest, and therefore a Federal role (United States Fire Administration, p. 43). The Volunteer Fire Assistance program (VFA), which was formerly referred to as the Rural Community Fire Protection program, is to provide Federal technical, financial, and other assistance to States Foresters and other relevant authorities to manage, instruct, and provide equipment to the rural communities in order to suppress and prevent fire (United States Fire Administration, p. 33). According to the considerations of the aforementioned programs, a rural community refers to a setting that has a population below 10,000 people. The Rural Fire Departments refer to the first line of defense charged the responsibility of responding to wild land fires and other emergencies (United States Fire Administration, p. 30). These fire departments are characteristically independent in their governance and firmly connected to each other through formal operating procedures and agreements in addition to professional and personal leadership.
Background and Purpose of the Study
According to the presumptions of most people in the United States, the states are protected by some fire departments. On the contrary, this presumption is not always the case. Several communities in the United States are unprotected form medical emergencies, natural disasters, rescue situations, and fires. For instance, states such as Arizona have existing fire departments. However, these fire departments are not required by state laws to respond to emergencies that fall outside their jurisdictions in helping communities that are not protected. The formation of a volunteer fire department entails more than just getting a fire engine and responding to emergencies. Most people oversee the importance of the legal requirements and ramifications including the penalties and fines imposed upon the fire department if it faults these regulations.
Volunteer Fire Departments are financed in several ways including taxes raised in a town, city, fire district, county, or any other governmental organizations. These departments also receive funding from corporate and other privately owned organizations, grants from the federal government, and other support from supplementary members or associations of firefighters (United States Fire Administration, p. 56). The funds received from these sources are meant to serve different purposes as indicated by the donors, or as deemed necessary by the authorities of these Volunteer Fire Departments. These purposes include the acquiring and operation of firefighting apparatus, equipping and training the firefighting staff. These finances are also intended maintain the firehouse, compensate the volunteers in various forms including insurance policies, on-job compensations, or pension or retirement benefits owed to the volunteers. According to the trends in national and international management, fire companies have merged in the rural and urban fire departments. This move to form mergers is aimed at reducing the operational costs as well as reduces other costs such as equipment acquisition costs. Additionally, mergers also improve service delivery efficiency.
The purpose of this report is to identify the revenue sources and trends for rural and urban Volunteer Fire Departments and companies. In this regard, this report seeks to determine the financial capacity of the volunteer fire companies to respond to community needs. As recent trend in the fire fighting industry, this report seeks to explain the recently merged fire companies in the United States and determine whether or not the merger has been financially beneficial.
The Scope and Limitation of the Report
This research study covers the important sources of finance for the urban and rural fire fighting companies in the United States as well as the purposes of these funds. As an introduction to this research study, it also covers the formation of these volunteer fire departments in different states of the U.S. The limitations of this research study include the little research that has been conducted on this topic. Additionally, volunteer fire departments’ data are not easily available since most people have little interest on this industry. This could be because most people in the present century have seek information aimed at earning them income, and not voluntary services.
Methodology
This research study implemented the use of data available on volunteer fire departments and companies in several states of the U.S. Additionally, previously established research studies have also been used in this research. In addition to these resources, the research also used library research to find information such as the history and funding of different fire departments.
Formation of a Volunteer Fire Department
There are several conditions to consider when forming a volunteer fire department. These conditions include the organization, personnel, funding issues, communication, training, and equipment supply among several other issues. Volunteer fire departments need volunteer members with professional training on fire fighting techniques or voluntarily willing to undertake such training in order to perform firefighting responsibilities. Funding is very important for every organization to start up. Rural and urban fire departments are started from volunteer contributions of members of the community, who pool resources to ensure that the necessary resources are available for the commencement of operations. Initially, fire departments used sirens to communicate to the communities. However, following the 9/11, most fire departments have adopted the 9/11 system to communicate with the public in case of an emergency. Finally, after putting up all these structures for establishing a volunteer fire department, it is important to gather the required equipment such as the fire engine as well as establish a regular water source such as lakes, rivers, wells, and pools to ensure that the organization gets sufficient water supply.
Revenue and Funding
During the needs assessment conducted in 2002 by the Fire Protection in Rural America, similar results were found as those present in the 1994 report by the same organization. According to these research reports, fire volunteer departments that receive most of their funding form the local revenue or taxing districts primarily served the rural American communities (Whitney, pp. 123-140). Additionally, these fire departments also receive funding from donations and fundraising. In the formative years of these volunteer fire departments, these departments did not typically receive funding from federal, state, or private industry sources. The former report (1994), the median annual budget for rural fire departments was $18,000 every year (Whitney, pp. 156-158). However, according to technological changes that have increased the prices of fire fighting equipments as well as and social changes that have increased living standards and social security such as insurance, this annual budget has greatly increased to more than five times this amount in 2012. This inflation factor has led to the necessity of the federal, state and private industry to contribute to the volunteer fire departments because all these stakeholders are beneficiaries of these programs.
Equipment
According to several researches on the priority of the volunteer fire departments, firefighting equipment have the highest priority in their acquisition, management, maintenance, and operation. In the 2002 survey report, it was identified that volunteer fire departments listed as priorities for federal funding: radio communications, water supply enhancement, and providing protective gear to the firefighting staff (Whitney, p 50). The needs assessment report in its finding noted that almost half of all rural and urban communities in the United States under 3000 residents have firefighting equipments installed in their homes, but all of these equipments as more than 20 years old, and that most of them are not operational.
Federal and State Contributions
According to a research study by the United States Department of Commerce in 1991, it estimated that the cost of covering the United States’ volunteer firefighters to paid status would be estimated at $37 billion (United States Fire Administration). A decade later, the National Fire Protection Association conducted a similar study and estimated the same cost at between $53 and $74 billion (United States Fire Administration). Currently, considering the national and international inflation rate from the latter report, the cost of covering the United States volunteer firefighters has greatly increased, which calls for state and federal support. In the history of the rural and volunteer firefighters, there have been very limited contributions from the federal and state governments. The Rural Development Act of 1972 was the first effort to authorize federal program offering meaningful financial support to volunteer fire departments. The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 also amended the former Act allowing increased contributions to these departments. However, in 2001, Congressional funding of the National Fire Plan saw the federal support increase from $2 million in 1995 to $13 million. In later developments to this contribution, there have been several amendments regarding the federal contribution to the volunteer fire departments including grants from the government.
Advantages of Mergers
Mergers are very crucial to governmental and non-governmental organization for several reasons. According to a monthly report by the Mountville Fire Company Chief Dean Gantz to borough council on November 11, 2013, he indicated that his department has noticed the increasing number of respondents to fire calls continue to decline. He also indicated that they have noticed that there is an average of five volunteers in each of these calls. The recent merger in the firefighting industry is was approved by a narrow margin for township council volunteer fire and emergency services companies in Pemberton. The merger has so far reduced the cross-training costs, thereby clearing doubts that the volunteers would be demoralized because of their selfless nature. After the merger, the organizations realized savings on training costs amounting to $12 million in the first face of the merger.
Summary and Conclusion
Just like career fire departments, volunteer fire departments have the responsibility of performing fire suppression as well as other emergency services related to this purpose with a local and urban jurisdiction. However, the volunteer fire departments are different in the sense that they are not compensated for their services, and are recruited on voluntary basis. The volunteer fire departments have had little contribution from the federal and state governments in the United States. However, several departments have stepped in to assist in the financing of these institutions. The rural and urban fires departments are started and initially managed form the voluntary contributions of the members of the society.
Rural and urban volunteer fire departments have moved into forming mergers in order to reduce the operational and training costs as well as improve the quality of service rendered to the public. The mergers such as witnessed in Pemberton township volunteer fire and emergency services companies, have greatly reduced costs within its first phase of implementation. Despite several policy amendments to support the volunteer fire departments, it important that the federal and state governments increase the amounts of money submitted to aid the community contributions.
Works Cited:
Whitney, Mark A. “Needs assessment: NFPA reports find improvement but continued needs for America's fire departments.” National Fire Protection Association. December 2002. Web March 2004
Tait, Adam. “EMS and Fire Company merge in Pemberton.” The South Jersey Local News Web September 12, 2013
United States Fire Administration. “Retention and Recruitment for the Volunteer Emergency Services; Challenges and Solutions.” Federal Emergency Management Agency. 2013
