“Firefighter recruitment initiative big success”

 When I saw that headline in yesterday’s LaVista, Nebraska, Sun I had to stop and check that out.  One of the recurring themes here at Firegeezer is the struggle that volunteer fire and EMS departments everywhere are having recruiting new members.  For a variety of largely cultural reasons, the pool of volunteers is shrinking and we have been pointing out some of the attempts to counteract that.

So what is going on in Nebraska that seems to be a solution?  The Bellevue Volunteer Fire Dept. held what they called a Fire Academy Weekend, a two-day event on Oct. 20 and 21 that was geared toward recruitment to show potential members what volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians do. The weekend’s activities culminated in the extinguishing of a controlled burn in a smoke-filled room.

They started out with ten potential new members had exposed them to a couple of days of “playing fireman,” if you will, at the regional training facility.  Using a minimal amount of classroom instruction, they first went over basic safety procedures and then some introduction to first-aid along with a primer on search and rescue.  In the afternoon they went to the drill tower, turned on the smoke machine and let them practice the search and rescue techniques themselves.

The next day led off with some vehicle extrication with the Hurst Tool and finished up with experiencing a live fire in the burn building.  All the recruits that completed the weekend came away with an enthusiastic attitude.

The VFD had hoped to gather as many as 25 candidates for this trial program, but ended up with 12 people signing up.  Two people didn’t show up for the class and after the first day one of the remaining 10 dropped out.  But the Fire Chief says that they are very happy with the way the session went.

“This was sort of experimental since it was our first,” he said, “but with how well it went and how fun it was and how much [the applicants] seemed to enjoy themselves. I’m sure this will be a recruitment tool we’ll use at least on a yearly basis. We got some solid candidates for the department with this initiative.”

Now the article doesn’t say how they connected with these 12 people in the first place, so that needs to be checked out.  And note also that these are not new members, but candidates who are considering joining.  But this weekend class is a new step that has been inserted into the recruitment package that looks to be successful.  You can bet that those ten trainees will be telling their friends all this week about their experience and that could lead to still more people becoming interested in joining.

Congratulations to Chief Rich Uhl for his innovative program.  Take time to read the full story in the Sun HERE.

Ok….let’s get the equipment checked.  I’ll make sure the coffee is started.

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