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Two fire officials urge the creation of a full-time county force as calls increase and volunteers depart.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 24, 2001
INVERNESS -- Saying their dwindling ranks of volunteers are becoming "burned out," two fire chiefs have asked the county to create a paid, full-time firefighter force to supplement their efforts.
Inverness Fire Chief Ray Hardy and Hernando Fire Chief Chad Coleman wrote separate letters to Citrus County officials this month, in which they said their volunteer forces are struggling to meet the growing number of calls for service.
In Hernando, for example, Coleman said, the force has dropped from 30 to nine volunteer firefighters during the past decade, while calls for service have tripled to about 60 or 70 per month.
With so few firefighters, it often takes crews from two or three districts to battle a structure fire -- a departure from the days when each of the county's 12 districts had the staffing to squelch blazes on its own, Coleman said.
"Daytime response is at a very serious low," Coleman wrote in his July 9 letter. "Other districts have to respond 10 to 15 miles out of their zone, which makes response times very long. Is that fair to the residents of Citrus County?"
The average response time in the county is 101/2 minutes, compared with the national standard of 5 to 7 minutes.
"We are getting burned out," Coleman added. "Fire protection in Citrus County is not a volunteer job anymore; it's a career!"
Fire chiefs in the rest of the county face the same problem as Coleman.
The number of volunteer firefighters countywide has dropped from 400 to 235 -- about 41 percent -- in the past five years, while calls for service have increased 24.3 percent, according to information given to the County Commission at its goal-setting session in February.
But commissioners showed no interest in a $2.4-million proposal by county staff to create 14 paid firefighter positions to supplement the volunteers' efforts.
Instead, commissioners talked about ways to draw more volunteers into the firefighter ranks, such as holding a volunteer appreciation picnic and boosting the firefighter reimbursement from $7.50 to $10 per call. Funding for both suggestions is included in the proposed 2001-2002 county budget, which was released last week.
Commissioners have said they want to hear from a consultant before they make any other changes to the fire service. Staffers are drafting a "request for qualifications" to seek out interested fire service consultants to review the county's system, County Administrator Richard Wesch said. "We are not initially responding directly to those letters (from the fire chiefs) but continuing pursuant to the (County Commission's) direction at goal-setting to analyze the situation," Wesch said Monday.
Fire Services Director Mike Schlaudraff and Public Safety Director Charles Poliseno were at a firefighters convention Monday and could not be reached for comment.
In the meantime, the county's efforts to recruit more volunteers have "basically amounted to nothing," Inverness Fire Chief Ray Hardy wrote in his July 3 letter to Schlaudraff.
"Let's think about what we have to offer people: They are required to complete a minimum of 160 hours of initial training, complete a fire apparatus check every week, schedule and shuttle apparatus for maintenance, attend department training sessions every Monday evening, volunteer (their) time at special events, and risk (their) own life to provide life safety for the residents of Citrus County," Hardy wrote.
"Do all of the above and you will be reimbursed $7.50 per call you respond to; whether that call lasts 10 minutes or six hours, $7.50," he added.
Besides responding to between 70 and 100 calls per month, the Inverness firefighters do everything from installing smoke detectors in the homes of disabled people to mowing the lawn at the station, Hardy said. The tasks add up quickly for volunteers who already have full-time jobs and their own homes to maintain, he said.
"The residents here deserve more than we, as volunteers, provide," Hardy wrote to Schlaudraff. "Therefore, we strongly urge you to push for the hiring of fulltime, paid personnel in some capacity as soon as possible."
"Our safety and the safety of the residents of Citrus County depend on it."