By Hank Russell
Local elected officials joined first responders at the Commack Fire Department on February 20 to call on those 18 and older to volunteer at their local fire departments.
According to the Suffolk County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services (FRES), there is a 16% increase in working house fires in Suffolk County this winter, a 37% rise in fire dispatch calls, a 68% spike in cold exposures reported by Suffolk County EMS and a 147% increase in service calls related to water flow issues.
There are currently more than 13,000 volunteer first responders throughout the County’s 109 fire departments and 28 EMS agencies. There has been a significant decline in the volunteer fire and EMS service in the state by 33% as there are currently 80,000 volunteers in New York compared to 120,000 in the 2000s.
“The overwhelming majority of fire departments in this county depend on volunteers,” said Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine. “If you had to pay [these firefighters], our costs would go up exponentially.”
Romaine said volunteers earn certain benefits, including free medical services, tax benefits, college tuition reimbursements, free training and service pay after serving a number of years and service credits that can be cashed in for a monthly pension. But, “most importantly, you get to establish friendships,” he said.
“You get to know these people because they are in your community,” Romaine said. “These are people who are there for you. They are Suffolk County, they are Long Island because they live here, and they are vested here.”
Suffolk County Legislator Sal Formica (R-Kings Park), who has served with the Commack Fire Department for 33 years, spoke about the importance of recruiting and retaining volunteers. “When we talk about recruitment and retention, we talk about one of the backbones of Suffolk County,” he said. “These folks are getting up in the middle of the night, they are leaving dinners that they may have, and they are doing it for one purpose and that purpose is, they want to make a difference.”
Because of the shortage of volunteers and the increase in calls, Formica said, many departments have been forced to take part in mutual aid responses. What happens is that neighboring fire departments are “automatically dispatched on certain calls to make sure that response time is maintained. But what happens when we do that is that we take from Peter to give to Paul. So they may be out to help us on call and moments later, their department is out getting dispatched to another call [in their community].”
“This year, the [number of] calls has increased tremendously,” Formica continued. “What has not increased is memberships.”
Formica said the community can help cut down on so-called “nuisance calls” by changing batteries in their smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, cleaning out their dryer vents and servicing their burners. Suffolk FRES Commissioner Rudy Sundermeyer added that fire and EMS responded to 52 structural fires in the last two months; the causes include thawing frozen pipes with blowtorches, using chimneys that were not recently inspected to heat the home and not disposing of fireplace ashes properly.
“In your home, safety starts with you,” Sundermeyer said.
When asked why there has been difficulty in recruiting volunteers, Sundermeyer cited family members working full-time jobs, cost of living and the inability to make that time commitment. Romaine added that younger people have left the state to live in more affordable parts of the country.
Suffolk County Clerk Vincent Puleo, who served as chief of the Nesconset Fire Department, called on the state Legislature to allow volunteers to collect a pay-per-call and pay-per-shift stipend. In doing so, “maybe [the volunteer] might be able to spend more time in the firehouse than having to work a second job at [a fast food restaurant],” he said.
Currently, volunteers are not allowed to collect stipends, Puleo said. Under the plan, the stipends would be taxpayer-funded and the fire district would pay the volunteers what they can “without going overboard.”
Right now, volunteers receive service award compensation, in which they receive a pension after 40 years of service, but, “the problem is, they need the money now,” said Puleo.
Commack Fire Commissioner made his pitch for more volunteers. “The greatest satisfaction that anybody can have is helping someone,” he said. “When you see a mom and you help their child get out of a car accident, or out of a house fire, there is absolutely no amount of money in the world that will make me feel better than a selfless act of help.”
“These are the lifesavers,” Romaine said of the volunteer firefighters, “and we need more of them.”