MIDCOAST MAINE: A bill in the Maine Legislature may increase the incentive for volunteer firefighters to stay with the job; yet, when the number of responders is low to begin with, a financial reward given after five years of service does the rural Midcoast little good.

The town of Cushing hasn’t seen a full roster of firefighters since 2010, according to Fire Chief Arthur Kiskila. Nor has his department received enough inquiries since then to remember. Out of 22 responders needed, the chief currently has 15 people to call if sparks fly in his town.

After that, Kiskila relies on Friendship and Warren crews for assistance.

Why?

“Too busy,” he said. “A lot have more than one job. And training requires a lot time.”

The same can be said for Searsmont, a town that has never had a full roster, though the department occasionally receives an inquiry, according to Chief James Ames. Some people claim work as a deterrent, or they are gone doing the day, or they are gone during the night.

At the national level, reasons for the decline vary. Listed deterrents include internal department politics and required fundraising. Also fading are the family lineages of responders that once flowed through the generations, such as Dylan Hill, of Cushing, who recently attended a live-fire training in South Thomaston, while his father operated a pumper truck nearby.

And, people nowadays often work in other towns, leaving them unable to return quickly enough to their home towns. Also, here along the coast, being out on a lobster boat can hamper the response time.

Some firefighters cite restrictions on leaving work, although Maine law requires that corporations allow firefighters to leave for structure fires or natural disasters, according to Eliot Scott, of Owls Head Fire Department, member of the Maine State Federation of Firefighters, and chairman of the firefighter recruitment committee.

South Thomaston Municipal Fire Department’s Chief Bryan Calderwood said: “Back when I started almost 25 years ago, employers had no problem if you needed to leave work and respond to an incident. Currently, if you need to leave work you have to use your personal time or lose time to respond, which makes members think about leaving first for the incident, ‘Do I have the time to use or can I afford to lose a few hours in my paycheck?’”

“Yes currently, there is state law that covers you for pay if you are late to work because of an incident but it doesn't cover you during your work hours,” he said.

As for income, Scott reminds potential volunteers that firefighters receive hourly compensation for calls and training, though Owls Head deviates from the norm by dispensing that compensation only once per year. As for training, a basic-level volunteer only needs six hours per month.

Scott, himself, maintains a part-time civilian job in neighboring Rockland. On the occasions he’s able to leave work for an Owls Head fire, Rockland law bans him from turning on his vehicle’s emergency light until he’s passed the town line.

In fact, Rockland’s career firefighters, contracted as mutual aid, almost always arrive first to Owls Head emergencies, though Scott said that Owls Head is experiencing fewer fires.

Fewer fires is what brought Dylan Hill, of Cushing, to the live-fire training. He’s been with his department for five years, and still has minimal experience in entering burning structures.

Chief Paul Rooney made the same case for Northport.

“There is a lot of training to do and very little opportunity to use it, which makes it hard to attract young people who frequently join because of the excitement of fighting fires,” he said.

With decline of incidents, potential recruits tend to forget about the other calls responders attend.

“We have accidents. We have trees across wires. We have aircraft incidences,” Scott said.

Fire service on every call is not just grabbing the hose and putting the fire out, according to Calderwood. Pump operators, traffic control, crowd control, water rescue, UTV, forestry, and many more forms of assistance are needed.

“With our department, I have members doing multiple jobs versus just one, which sometimes works, but when it's a big incident it can get a little stressful,” he said.

Mutual aid is called to fill in some of those gaps and to verify that the help is there if needed. State law requires two Self Contained Breathing Apparatus personnel to be outside for every two SCBA personnel inside.

Like all mutual aid contractors, Rockland provides resources without expected remittance, which included loaning its thermal imaging camera. Owls Head recently raised funds and accepted donations to purchase its own.

On the flip side, when a plane at the airport crashed just beyond the fence several years ago, triggering a fire, it was Owls Head’s resources that came in handy, according to Scott.

“Rockland got there first, and they were trying to put it out with water,” he said. “We come alongside them and we go ‘We’re going to hook up to you, and we’re going to feed up some foam.’ And the fire went out just like that.”

Northport, which has relied upon Belfast and Lincolnville for years, started relying on Belmont also due to a shortage of manpower at its most recent structure fire, according to Chief Rooney.

The Northport department currently has 20 volunteer firefighters.

“I believe in the past we have had as many as 35,” he said. “We have not had that many in at least the 20 years I have been with the department. The last time we had a full roster was probably back in the 1970s.”

In the past two years, four new people came on board. Two of them happen to be trained EMS, and some are firefighters for other departments as well. Northport’s one junior firefighter is the first for the department in four or five years.

“The younger people I have on my roster all live out of town because they either can't find a place in town or they can't afford it,” he said.

Taking a more optimistic approach, the Ames, of Searsmont, summed it up well.

“I have found over the years that if you can get one percent of your population you have done will,” he said.

 Sarah Thompson can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com