Volunteer response from the station

[Acklan]

I have read where several departments staff a truck prior to responding to an incident. My question is...

1) How many respond on your first out unit,
** a)1
** b)Fully staffed. a responder per seat
** c)As many as on board after XX:xx time.
2) What is your response time on average. Not a guess, but your communition's dispatcher's time between dispatch\page, and en router (not arrival at the station. Unit is in "D" and moving.)?
3) Do you man your volunteer station(s) with volunteers, (not career or contract FFs) 24\7 or do your fire fighter\EMS respond from their house\job?

This is not to start, a fight I am just curious.

[hwoods]

Well.............

With the exception of a Few Outlying Stations, Home Response to the Station is Rare in our County. Volunteer Stations have a few to a dozen or more people in the station all the time. When a Call is Dispatched, we are required to be on the street in 1 minute or less. Staffing on the Apparatus varies, but is usually 5-8 on the Rescue Engine and/or the Heavy Rescue, with a Max of 6 on the Fire Engine. Ambulances go with 2 or 3.....

[BSFD140]

The way we do it is we have paid staff at each of our three stations assigned to the engines 24/7 with a Driver/Engineer, Lt, and FF. They run all the single engine calls. On a box call they drop tones to the off-duty personnel and the volunteers/part time fire fighters who then respond to the scene.

The trucks are usually rolling out the bay in about a minute or two as when the Fire Line rings we get a heads up and are able to start moving towards the trucks and getting our gear on.

[Acklan]

With the exception of a Few Outlying Stations, Home Response to the Station is Rare in our County. Volunteer Stations have a few to a dozen or more people in the station all the time. When a Call is Dispatched, we are required to be on the street in 1 minute or less. Staffing on the Apparatus varies, but is usually 5-8 on the Rescue Engine and/or the Heavy Rescue, with a Max of 6 on the Fire Engine. Ambulances go with 2 or 3.....

How does that work with volunteers? Does your department require time at the station per month? Does your department require your volunteers to pull 24 hr shifts? How many volunteers do you have asigned to a stations?

[voyager9]

I'm part of a combination department. The station has career staffing during the day M-F. Nights and weekends are volunteer. In station duty crews for weeknights (6p-6a) and home response during weekends. The duty crew will handle incidental calls while calls of significance will usually bring enough guys from home to get a 2nd/3rd peice on the road.

I don't have the actual response times.. here's my educated guess: While staffed it's usually within 1-2 minutes. Can be more when crew is doing training. During home response times it's between 4-5.

Minimum staffing is 4, max is 6: (Dr, Off, FFx{2,4}) though I'll admit sometimes you have to go with what you've got (3). I won't roll a truck with just Dr/Off unless it's the 2nd/3rd piece out of the station.

[Acklan]

I was targeting the all volunteer departments, not that your input is not welcome. I am just trying to understand how 5 to 8 volunteers can be at the station 24\7? I understand the dedication, but unless you have a hugh number of volunteers, to rotate, it would seem they would be a time that they would be at their jobs, at least during the day (7-5)?

[voyager9]

I was targeting the all volunteer departments, not that your input is not welcome. I am just trying to understand how 5 to 8 volunteers can be at the station 24\7? I understand the dedication, but unless you have a hugh number of volunteers, to rotate, it would seem they would be a time that they would be at their jobs, at least during the day (7-5)?

Understood.. and I have a huge amount of respect for the all volunteer departments that are able to pull off what you describe above.

For some departments, day response is less of a problem. Some have members who do shift work.. or nearby colleges. College Park in PG County, MD comes to mind.

[dmleblanc]

1) How many respond on your first out unit,
** a)1
** b)Fully staffed. a responder per seat
** c)As many as on board after XX:xx time.

First out unit responds with as many as on board after a reasonable amount of time, always a minimum of 2. Considering we only have one engine with a custom cab, that unit may respond with as few as 2 (common) or as many as 6 (rare). Evenings and nights it's usually 3 or 4, weekdays it might be only 2. We will split up as necessary to roll the second and third trucks per our protocols (structure fire alarms get 2 engines and a service truck)

2) What is your response time on average. Not a guess, but your communition's dispatcher's time between dispatch\page, and en router (not arrival at the station. Unit is in "D" and moving.)?

Our dispatch doesn't track what time the first apparatus is moving...since all of our members carry portable radios, the "en route" time is whatever time the first individual replies that they are responding. Add a couple of minutes to that for first unit out the door. Generally speaking, our time from dispatch to on scene averages 6-8 minutes, usually less than 10, occasionally 10-12 minutes out to some of the far edges of our district.

3) Do you man your volunteer station(s) with volunteers, (not career or contract FFs) 24\7 or do your fire fighter\EMS respond from their house\job?

All home or work response, no one staffs the station.

[mcwops]

1) How many respond on your first out unit,
** a)1
** b)Fully staffed. a responder per seat
** c)As many as on board after XX:xx time.
2) What is your response time on average. Not a guess, but your communition's dispatcher's time between dispatch\page, and en router (not arrival at the station. Unit is in "D" and moving.)?
3) Do you man your volunteer station(s) with volunteers, (not career or contract FFs) 24\7 or do your fire fighter\EMS respond from their house\job?

1. We leave usually with a minimum of two (driver/officer), but usually wait until we get a few more in the back before leaving. There is no set timeline however, mostly the judgement of the officer based on type of call and how many are showing up.

2. Average time out the door is about 4-5 minutes from time of page.

3. Our station is only manned by one paid EMS unit, fire side is all volunteers that respond to station, we are not allowed to respond to the scene in POVs.

[Bones42]

-- All volunteer department, 2 stations. No duty crews, all respond from home/work when paged.


1) How many respond on your first out unit,
** a)1
** b)Fully staffed. a responder per seat
** c)As many as on board after XX:xx time.

- Daytime response, 3 guys on the engine, 4 guys on the truck. Evening/night response, 5 guys on engine, 5 guys on truck. There will be a first out unit from each station.

2) What is your response time on average. Not a guess, but your communition's dispatcher's time between dispatch\page, and en router (not arrival at the station. Unit is in "D" and moving.)?

- Between 2-4 minutes on average for the trucks to be responding. Chiefs enroute in 1-3 minutes.

3) Do you man your volunteer station(s) with volunteers, (not career or contract FFs) 24\7 or do your fire fighter\EMS respond from their house\job?

- Only man the stations during a storm standby, otherwise it's all from home/job.

[jam24u]

non manned station.

We roll out minimum two per apparatus.

The number and type of apparatus depend on the type of call.

We resemble the majority of rural stations in towns under 9,000 population in our state.

[Eng34FF]

I have read where several departments staff a truck prior to responding to an incident. My question is...

1) How many respond on your first out unit,
** a)1
** b)Fully staffed. a responder per seat
** c)As many as on board after XX:xx time.
2) What is your response time on average. Not a guess, but your communition's dispatcher's time between dispatch\page, and en router (not arrival at the station. Unit is in "D" and moving.)?
3) Do you man your volunteer station(s) with volunteers, (not career or contract FFs) 24\7 or do your fire fighter\EMS respond from their house\job?

This is not to start, a fight I am just curious.

Minimum staffing is 3 on an engine or squad, 2 on the ambulance and 1 on the tanker. Engines, tanker and squad seat 6.

We are replaced on the call if we don't respond within 5 min. Most of the time we are out within 2 or 3 min.

We try to keep at least 1 crew in the station 24/7. To do this, we have people who do shift work man the station during the day, we have duty crews in the evening, and a few who sleep overnight. We do get response from home to staff whatever we don't have in-house staffing for.

We are all volunteer, run ambulance, engine, heavy rescue squad, tanker, a zodiac and the county's mass casualty unit. We get about 2000 calls a year.

[hwoods]

How does that work with volunteers? Does your department require time at the station per month? Does your department require your volunteers to pull 24 hr shifts? How many volunteers do you have asigned to a stations?

We live in a different world here. For one thing, we have 7 members who live at the Station. Also 8 of our 45 Active Responders are Career Firefighters elsewhere, so they are on Shift Work. There are folks like me (Retired) with Flexible Schedules, or no schedule at all. We have a "Duty Night" thing, but with us, we're at the Station because we want to be. In most of Small Town America a lot of folks join the VFD because they want to help their neighbor. Here, most join because they want to run calls. Period. We make things as enjoyable as possible for the members, so that desire to "Hang Out" is always alive and well. Our Big draw in this County is Call Volume. Our Station runs in the middle of the pack, about 3,800 to 4,000 calls each year. Our Busiest Stations are over 10,000, and the Slowest is around 2,000. We have no limit on the amount of Members that we can have, and No Residence requirements. In fact, we have members who live out of State, 2 in Pa, 1 in NJ, 2 in Va, and 2 in WVa. Part of this is that Young Folks from out in the Country can join here and get a huge amount of experience quickly, compared to their Home area.

[volfireman034]

We are a small rural station so we run with ,
1 firefighter 1 apparatus
2 firefighters 2 apparatus
3 firefighters 3 apparatus
4 firefighters the fire call must have come during a training class lol

We do this becuase it gets the apparatus to the scene as fast as possible plus other firefighters will be responding directly to the scene.

[Acklan]

Our Big draw in this County is Call Volume. Our Station runs in the middle of the pack, about 3,800 to 4,000 calls each year. Our Busiest Stations are over 10,000, and the Slowest is around 2,000. We have no limit on the amount of Members that we can have, and No Residence requirements. In fact, we have members who live out of State, 2 in Pa, 1 in NJ, 2 in Va, and 2 in WVa. Part of this is that Young Folks from out in the Country can join here and get a huge amount of experience quickly, compared to their Home area.

Wow! Almost 30 calls a day, and no residence restrictions. Sign me up. I retire in January, I could make that my vacation home.