Connecticut towns with volunteer fire departments have been struggling in recent years to bring on new volunteers, forcing the towns in many instances to reorganize their fire houses and rely on outside help from neighboring municipalities and staffing services.

In Avon, for instance, a lack of volunteers has left one fire station in a difficult to access part of town essentially shuttered and creating lag time for fire response to that area. 

During a recent deadly fire in Glastonbury, a mutual aid call was put out to surrounding municipalities to help cover Glastonbury’s stations while the town’s firefighters were battling the blaze. However, several towns were unable to answer the call, necessitating mutual aid calls to other towns. 

“There were a couple departments that couldn’t provide coverage, so we just reached out to the next department that could,” said Glastonbury Fire Chief Michael Thurz. “It had no impact on the fire, it’s just backfilling my fire stations for other parts of the town.”

The problem of a declining number of fire and EMS volunteers is not unique in towns without a professional fire department or EMS services, and often those towns rely on mutual aid or automatic aid agreements with neighboring municipalities to respond to fire and medical emergencies to bring in more trucks or cover services while the town’s volunteers are handling an emergency.

But the lack of volunteers has pushed some towns to start hiring professionals from staffing agencies to cover gaps in coverage and ensure timely responses.

Northeast Fire-Rescue is a staffing service company operated by two professional firefighters that matches towns in need of assistance with certified firefighters and EMS personnel who can staff fire houses and EMS headquarters day or night.

“Unfortunately, the reality is the volunteer world has really decreased, people have busy lives,” said Northeast Fire-Rescue co-owner Tom Varanelli. “The draw to the blue-collar trades just isn’t what it used to be, and certainly public safety has seen that struggle.”

Varanelli says they launched their service in 2022 and signed their first contract with Storms Fire & Engine Company in Derby in the summer of that year. They currently have 129 firefighters, EMT’s and paramedics employed in towns across the state, including in Canton, which borders Avon and serves to make up for volunteer shortages and staff headquarters when most volunteers are at work.

Northeast Fire-Rescue’s staffing model is not new; the state mandates certain response availability requirements for EMS, but does not have similar mandates for fire response. “With the decrease in volunteers, we are seeing a growing need for it and many departments have started to inquire, reach out, and probe the idea, and then starting to try to acquire the funding from the municipalities.”

Northeast Fire-Rescue isn’t the only hiring service game in town, however. Vintech Management Services has a larger presence and history in the state. Started in 1999, Vintech says that it employs over 250 paramedics and EMTs for 19 different services in Connecticut.

But the staffing service model does present some challenges in terms of costs, leaving some town officials having to weigh the costs, benefits, and constraints of using a combination of diminishing volunteers and contracted emergency personnel versus hiring their own professional fire and emergency staff. Taking on EMS employees through a hiring service, naturally, comes with fees for the service.

An agreement with the Town of Canton, Northeast Fire-Rescue is providing two EMTs and a paramedic: one EMT covers weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; another EMT for weekend overnights, and one paramedic covers 24 hours, seven days per week, but it would require an additional $100,000 to $110,000 from the town, according to meeting minutes.

The town faced rising rates from its previous EMS services contract provider and put out a request for proposals. Northeast Fire-Rescue was the only respondent and was a “slightly less expensive contract,” but, according to the minutes, the selectmen were pleased with the contract, and the fire department is continuing outreach to get more volunteers to help cut costs.

During an October 2023 Coventry Town Council Meeting, members discussed the $855,000 in American Rescue Plan (ARPA) dollars the town had directed toward Vintech to make up for the lack of volunteers. It’s a sizeable chunk for a town with an $11.6 million budget, and a move that the Chairwoman of the Coventry Town Council says was a mistake. 

“It was a mistake by the 2019-2021 Town Council leadership to use ARPA dollars to fund these new (and then ongoing) operating expenses without having a plan and commitment for moving those expenses into the Town Operating Budget,” Thomas wrote in an email. “We also used ARPA dollars towards replacing fire equipment – that was a smart thing to do since it was a one-time expense. We have been at Vintech’s mercy with their rates, including a significant mid-stream contract increase demand during the current contract. Having no back up plan, we had no choice but to use dollars that should have been available for other needs.”

 During a November 2023 meeting of the Town Council, council members discussed the lack of EMS volunteers and worried that rising costs for Vintech’s services meant that it may end up being less expensive to hire their own professional staff so they could better control the costs. The town was able to get a few more volunteers, saving them $11,000, according to meeting minutes.

At 2024 the annual Council of Small Towns (COST) convention on February 8, Thomas used her speaking time to address, in part, the volunteer crisis for emergency fire and medical services.

“I know that all of you are aware of the unprecedented crisis we have recruiting and retaining firefighters and EMS personnel statewide,” Thomas said. “For towns like Coventry that have for decades relied on volunteer fire and emergency medical personnel, this is a gargantuan challenge.”  

“In Coventry I am faced with trying to pass a budget at referendum that will have an additional near half million dollars included to pay for either contracting for ambulance staffing or to hire our own staff,” Thomas continued. “That half mil increase is in addition to any other increases that our budget is facing.  In a town that refused to pass any mil rate increase at referendum for nearly 5 years, this is daunting.”

But these are challenges that many towns with declining numbers of volunteer fire and EMS personnel are facing or may have to face in the coming years. More than 80 percent of fire departments in Connecticut are staffed by volunteers and are struggling to find new recruits, as current volunteers begin to age out.

“Across the board [the EMS landscape] is in tough shape,” Varanelli said. “You’re going to see a lot of organizations, whether they’re the large, commercial entities or the small volunteer departments, they’re all struggling. Everybody is kind of working together to find new alternative ways to make sure they can still meet their community’s needs.”

“Everybody is hurting, everybody has lives, and we’re just here to help,” Varanelli said.

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