Ohio has nearly 400 vacant volunteer firefighter positions, according to job listings compiled by Make Me A Firefighter.
Governor Mike DeWine announced last week that the state is turning up the heat on its recruitment campaign. It’s offering free training classes for volunteer firefighters and will begin airing 30-second public service announcements across the state. They’ll share the stories of volunteer firefighters and why they choose to be their community’s emergency responders.
Terry Kuhlman has been a volunteer firefighter for half a century in Lakeview. He said the shortage has hit the northwest Ohio village in recent years. They’re struggling to get volunteers at the station.
“People are moving away or changing jobs and whatever the case may be,” Kuhlman said. “We’ve probably lost about seven [firefighters], close to ten, probably in the last two years.”
Nearly 70% of Ohio’s fire stations are volunteer run, like Kuhlman’s. And many face similar challenges. From 2018 to 2021, there was a 6.5% decrease in the number of volunteer firefighters in the state, according to Statehouse News Bureau reporting.
Barriers to recruitment
It’s an issue that the state has been looking at for a while. DeWine formed the Volunteer Fire Service Task Force in 2022 to look into the barriers to recruiting volunteers.
Its report found that many volunteer firefighters have to pay for their own personal protection equipment and take time off work to do training. On top of that, Kuhlman said firefighters have to be prepared to give large chunks of their personal time to respond to emergencies.
“You gotta be somebody that is willing to donate 100% of your time,” he said.
It's a big ask for civilians to take up, especially Kuhlman said without any financial incentives. He said he wants volunteer firefighters to receive state income tax credits.
That’s one of the task force’s many recommendations to ease recruitment woes. It also suggested increasing paid leave time for volunteer firefighters and providing tuition vouchers at Ohio’s career and technical schools.
Small town challenges
Rural communities are more likely to have volunteer fire departments, but those areas come with unique recruiting challenges. In small towns, like Lakeview, rural workers often travel to other towns for work and aren’t around most of the day to respond to emergencies.
“Here in Lakeview from like 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., there might be three people showing up. Where, if you get [a call] after 6 p.m., you’re going to get 10 [people responding] because they’re home from their jobs,” Kuhlman said.
When fire stations lose volunteers, Kuhlman said stations’ response times to community emergencies become delayed, giving time for fires to grow more dangerous. That increases the risk for the rural volunteer responders themselves.
“Volunteer firefighters can be exposed to much higher levels of risk because they often are faced with fighting larger fires with far fewer people and only 15% of the training afforded to paid firefighters,” the 2023 report by the Volunteer Fire Service Task Force reads.
Rewarding work
Despite the challenges, Kuhlman said his work is rewarding.
“I love helping people. Many people that I helped out on a wreck or whatever the case may be, years later, they'll see me on the street and they'll congratulate me or thank me for what I did.” he said. “That there just makes me so proud that I'm there to help them out.”
At the age of 68, Kuhlman doesn’t want to stop volunteering anytime soon, even though he’s fifteen years older than the average Ohio volunteer firefighters age of 54.
He said he’ll keep going as long as he is able. He wants to help train the next generation of recruits in doing lifesaving work.
“Everything that I learned in my 50 years of service, I don't want to take any of it to the grave,” he said.
