Evening ya'll,

I've been curious about how things are run at other fire departments that utilize volly's and duty crew.  I will start here with a few questions. Feel free to chime in with your own. It will be interesting see how things compare across the nation. No need to name your dept. This could be a fun thread :

Volunteer up first:
1. Does your dept offer a stipend for VFF? If not are you for or against such an idea?
2. Does your dept require members to ride out an min/max amount a month or respond to certain amount of calls?
3. POV response or assigned to a station?

Duty crew:
1. How many crew per a shift?
2. Combined with FT?
3. 24hr or day time only?

Volunteer:
1. For one no stipend. For the other yes. $40 for 12hrs.
2. For one no. The other 72 hrs per month.
3. Pov for one. Station assignment at the other.

Duty crew:
1. 2 per truck/per shift.
2. PT with Volly.
3. Day time only.

Only VFDs here in rural Montana. And we may not be a good example to use for data.

   We have to make any number of exceptions for people due to the extreme lack of numbers. In my volunteer department we have only about a thousand people in our assigned district, maybe less.  We have 9 active members. Our area is 30 miles wide by 65 miles long.

Anyway.
1.  No we don't get any pay. I would like a stipend as I think that would get volunteer numbers up.  Every call we get I spend $6 in gas responding to the station (16 miles away). Most of the others are in a similar position

2.  No minimum hours.   We take who we can when we can. We're just glad our current crop try to get in minimum training.

3.  Pov response to station and a truck out is standard though if the crash or fire is between home and the station we will respond to the scene.

1. Stipend - Sort of, we have a program for paying people to work minimum 8 hour shifts which gets you $40 I think (I stopped taking the money years ago because the 1099 was messing me up come tax time, any money I make gets donated directly to the department before it hits my hands.)

2. Minimum ride out requirements - We utilize a points system, members are supposed to earn 60 points per quarter. Points are earned from making calls, training, weekly meetings, work details, etc. Exceptions to this policy can be approved by the Chief on a case by case basis.

3. POV/Station response - In most cases members are expected to respond to the station, senior members can go direct to scene if it is between them and they verify that somebody qualified to operate the needed apparatus is responding. We try to staff the station with a minimum of two people (ideally four) from Friday to Sunday when possible.

Department is all volunteer, we cover approximately 55 square miles with a population of around 6000 people and average about 500 calls a year, currently ISO Class 3. Ambulance service is provided by a private service through the county ESD but we are BLS first response on all calls. We seem to fluctuate between about 15-20 active members, unfortunately we are on the low end of that at the moment. In addition to our district we provide automatic aid to our neighboring volunteer departments and have mutual aid agreements with all other departments in the county. Being a member of an ESD has pluses and minuses for us, on the plus side we are well funded and trained due to contract requirements but the training requirements have also put a damper on volunteer numbers. We have always required the state recommended minimum fire training, maintenance of a BLS Healthcare Provider CPR card, and a 16 hour basic first responder medical class. The fire training is easy to spread around peoples schedules and most could find one weekend to do the medical training. As of two years ago our contract now requires all new members to obtain ECA/EMR certification which is 40-60 hours plus testing and is much harder to spread out time wise, while the more advanced training is great for us as a department and for our community, the time commitment required before even being able to respond to the most basic call puts a damper on recruitment.

I started at and spent my first 5 years at a combination department, to the best of my knowledge this is still how they operate.

3 stations covering 22 square miles and running about 2,000 calls a year.


Volunteer up first:
1. $60 for a 12 hour shift, $100 for 24
2. Minimum 48 hours per month in either 12 or 24 hour blocks.  We had 2 training days a month and I want to say you had to meet 70% on the year.
3. POV response was not allowed, we reported for duty as any career FF would and filled a slot for that shift.

Duty crew:
1. 2 3-man and 1 4-man Engine, fully staffed at 11, could drop to 10 without OT or volunteers filling seats.
2. Driver and officer of each of the 3 Engines and the BC had to be career guys, Volunteers could only be backseat guys
3. 24/48

Thanks for all the replies so far guys. I would have responded sooner but i've been without my login the last 4 days on vacation. I can't remember the password .

Seems like it's a pretty standard setup.

For my hometown VFD we have about 7 guys who are active. Many more can come if SHTF. We don't get a stipend. Kind of wish it did just to offset gas but it's not mandatory.

For my duty crew dept we have 12 guys to fill 2 spots M-F 10hr AM shifts. Not a great place for a probie with no experience.

For my other VFD: It's a medium size combo department. FT's are driver/op and officer. PT's fill the 3rd seat and Volly fills the 4th. All PT's and Volly are expected to get 72hrs min a month. For Volly $40/12hr shift.

Volunteer department:
1. Does your dept offer a stipend for VFF? If not are you for or against such an idea?
Nope. I'm for the idea, many VFD in the area do pay by call.
2. Does your dept require members to ride out an min/max amount a month or respond to certain amount of calls?
They do have a "required" percentage of attendances, in 5 categories, only one of which is calls. The other four are special events, training, business meetings, and station/apparatus check-offs. They do not enforce the rules, as they are worried about retention if they start kicking people off.
3. POV response or assigned to a station? Generally assigned to a station, but many volunteers respond POV.

Career department:
1. How many crew per a shift?
3 crew members assigned to my engine.
2. Combined with FT? This is for my career FF job, so everybody is career with a few part time and Kelly spots.
3. 24hr or day time only? 24/48

Volunteer up first:

1. Does your dept offer a stipend for VFF? If not are you for or against such an idea? No, membership into FF retirement plan is offered instead.  It would be nice for volunteers to earn a stipend but many departments that rely on volunteers don't have the budget for that.  We had a combo dept. and never had a lack of volunteers willing to work.  The department also pays for all volunteer training so they can go to FFI which is mandatory or they can choose to take FFII, Instructor I, Instructor II, EMT, plus all the regulars (vehicle extrication, structural firefighting, ropes and the rest. I'm sleepy and can't remember them at the moment.)  Volunteers can, and often do, put in a few years getting the training and experience that makes it easier to hire into paid positions in our department or other even larger ones.  

2. Does your dept require members to ride out an min/max amount a month or respond to certain amount of calls? Sort of, volunteers are asked to respond as often as they can but there is no set number.  If a volunteer doesn't show up very often they forfeit their spot to the next person waiting for a spot.  We were lucky in that we had a very well equipped department and no lack of volunteers.

3. POV response or assigned to a station? Our volunteers respond in their POV but have the option of picking a station to man and assist the paid full time crew whenever they want, which they often do.


Duty crew:
1. How many crew per a shift? Depends, usually it's 3-4 full time paid firefighters at the main station and 2 or more at outlying stations but it's flexible.  If there aren't enough full time members (injury, sickness, PTO..) to man an outlying station then volunteers who are at least FFI but preferably FFII certified and known to be qualified will be asked to work a paid shift.

2. Combined with FT? Not sure I understand the question. If you mean how many on duty with paid and volunteer together, it just depends on the turnout after paging.

3. 24hr or day time only? Paid full time FF's work 24 on/48 off.

Volunteer up first:
1. Does your dept offer a stipend for VFF? If not are you for or against such an idea?

At one time my former department got run pay my current department doesn't get anything but a set of gear.

2. Does your dept require members to ride out an min/max amount a month or respond to certain amount of calls?

Show up as much as possible technically there are generally min/max responses but most of the time staffing is so short it is not enforced.

3. POV response or assigned to a station?

Depends on situation.

1.  No stipend, however there is a retirement / pension benefit for all qualifying members, X dollars per month for every year of qualifying service.

2.  The Company and District have minimum responding standards, as a percentage of monthly calls.  The Companies also have attendance requirements for social / fundraising events, training, drills, standby, etc.  No restrictions on maximum.  There are additional training requirements to maintain Interior status, as well as specialized certs like extraction, rope, cold water, etc.

3.  Probies are required to respond to the station until instructed otherwise. Duty Drivers cannot respond to the scene.  Responders in and around town, with issued gear in their POVs may respond to the scene, all others POV to the station. We have Companies with their own houses with 2 substations; technically all members of the district can respond too any of the stations, but more than likely you'll be standing watching the engines leave if your not at your own company Station.

Full timer on a combination department.

1.) Volunteers are not paid, they have a pension fund through the county association that I think nets them $100/mo or so after 20 years of service/contributions.
2.) They are required to make 20% of fires (not enforced in my experience). No requirements for EMS or other calls and the only time any of them will show up on medicals is on full arrests if they are close by. 42 hours of training yearly (this is enforced, those who lack the required hours are put on auxiliary status and not allowed on scene until caught up on training).
3.)POV to scene.

1.) Eight man full time crew working out of two stations.
2.) Yes
3.) 48/96 shifts for us and whenever we page out to a fire for them.

Our volunteers are basically a legacy deal from the departments early days as an all volunteer department when it was founded back in the 40's. In the late 50's they hired a full time firefighter who worked M-F days and would drive the truck to the call cutting response times in half by letting the vollies go direct to scene. Volunteers used to man the station overnight and on weekends on a rotation schedule. Over the years the town grew and so did the department and it's needs. They also had trouble maintaining overnight staffing with vollies not showing up for their shifts. Today there are only 7 volunteers and almost half of them have been at it 20 plus years.