Department               FY 2015 operating budget             Roster

Paris                        $418,741                                    39

Oxford                     $341,338                                    34

Norway                    $264,000                                    45

Buckfield                   $107,905                                   17

Harrison                    $97,341                                     43

West Paris                 $80,000 approximately                18  

Western Maine fire departments are facing manpower shortages, prompting some chiefs to issue calls for help to keep firefighters and the public safe.

Paris Fire Chief Brad Frost and Oxford Fire Chief Wayne Jones have each put out calls for more people so they’ll have enough coverage to safely fight fires and respond to other emergencies.

Both departments are a mix of part-time and on-call firefighters. Frost is in search of on-call firefighters, while Jones is looking for both. Paris selectmen gave Frost the green light recently to find another part-time employee after one cut his hours back.

“We are not the only ones with problems in Paris. It is statewide,” Frost said.

“It is a common theme all across the United States,” Jones said. “Everybody is struggling and has been for years.”

Frost has 39 people on his roster but has problems staffing the fire station evenings and weekends.

“I never know when anybody is going to be around. It’s a roll of a coin really,” he said, noting he only had two people to respond to a fire at 1 a.m. recently. “I am running with three people and that’s minimum. I should have four.”

Jones has 34 on his roster and is able to staff the department seven days a week. He aims to have two cross-trained firefighter/EMTs to cover weekends and only has on-call coverage at night.

“You look at Oxford, Paris, then you head toward the coast, (we) all hire per diems,” he said. “It’s tough to even hire people to fill (positions) because everybody is trying to share from that same pool of employees.”

But it isn’t only these full-time fire chiefs who are feeling the squeeze of the firefighter shortage. Chiefs in smaller departments are also under pressure.

“Everybody is feeling it in the whole state. We’re all shorthanded especially during the daytime,” said West Paris Fire Chief Norm St. Pierre.

His department is volunteers who are paid per call, as are those serving in Harrison and Buckfield.

“A lot of times they are called ‘volunteers’ but a true volunteer is getting very nominal pay,” Jones explained about the structure used most often by smaller Oxford Hills fire departments.

St. Pierre has 18 people on his roster, but he and other area fire chiefs rely heavily on mutual aid.

“If I had a fire call right now, I would probably get one (firefighter),” he said, noting there needs to be roughly 20 people to respond to a residential fire. “Sometimes to even do a house fire, you have to call in 12 or 13 departments.”

St. Pierre recalled a fire in early January that took that many departments and people to extinguish it. He said it often looks like there’s a lot of people responding to a structure fire, but there may only be 12 or 13 who are certified to go into a burning building.

“A lot of times if I get to the scene, I will wear an air pack, especially if you have to go save a life or something like that,” St. Pierre said, adding many people expect the chief to command the scene and not necessarily be so hands-on. “You have to buck up and put on your pack and get to work. I’ve done that several times and put other people in command that weren’t able to go in.”

Jones concurred with the number of people it takes to safely fight a fire, adding even his slightly larger department relies on mutual aid.

“We’re rolling out the door with four, provided the rescuers are already on the ambulance,” he said.

Harrison Fire Chief Dana Laplante, who also works for Paris Fire Department, and Buckfield Fire Chief Tim Brooks have problems with daytime coverage during the workweek.

Brooks called it “our scary point,” and said he tries to staff weekdays with crossed-trained firefighters and EMTs, if possible, so the fire and rescue departments can split the cost and respond to any call.

“And it’s not every day I can have them either,” Brooks said.

The only Oxford Hills fire department bucking the shortage trend is Norway. Fire Chief Dennis Yates has 45 people on his roster, which is strictly paid volunteer, sans Yates, who is a full-time paid chief.

“We’re holding our own right now. We’re very fortunate to have the people that we have,” Yates said. “There’s a few times we could probably use a few more people. We call mutual aid at any time we have a structure fire. We automatically have mutual aid from Oxford, Paris and PACE. That’s something the three chiefs … set up.”

Laplante’s roster consists of 43 people, which initially looks plentiful, but he estimates he only has 15 to 20 active members. He has a few retired guys who can respond to daytime calls, but the younger and middle-aged firefighters can’t.

“They work out of town. They’re just not around to help me during the day,” Laplante said.

Frost has only nine people trained to do interior firefighting work and live in town, but all of them work out of town.

“People are working a couple of jobs just to keep their head above water,” he said.

The struggle is similar in West Paris.

“People have to work and support their families, pay for insurance. It is kind of crazy, and volunteer fire departments don’t pay for our insurance or any health benefits,” St. Pierre said. “It’s just a sign of the times. Volunteerism, it’s nice to do but it’s going by the wayside. It is tough.”

Brooks has 17 people on his roster and half of his members do not live in Buckfield.

“It’s hard, so that leaves us eight members out of a population of a little over 2,000,” he said. “A third of my members – the ones that are EMTs – they work at at least one other if not two other services because (EMT work) does not pay that much.”

In Oxford, Jones said much of the issue is because of the changing times. When he first began firefighting at 14, families normally only needed one parent to work while the other stayed home with the children.

“That allowed for different opportunities at that point in time,” he said, which included firefighting. “It’s not that way anymore. Both the partners in the home need to work. Most of the time it is full time. It doesn’t leave them a lot of time.”

Also, the days are gone when thriving mills and manufacturing plants allowed locals to work in town and answer fire calls while at their day jobs.

“They can’t afford to let their workers go on fire (calls),” Jones said about today’s businesses. “I can’t even think of an instance of a company that does that anymore.”

Jones and Frost, who have been in the fire industry for roughly four and five decades, respectively, have seen their fair share of changes in firefighting.

Brooks and Laplante agreed with their colleagues that training and regulations have become more stringent. It sometimes deters people from joining the fire service.

“People can’t just give the time like they used to. A lot of time people come in and they find out how much it requires to be a fireman and they’re like, ‘I don’t have a lot of time,’” Laplante said.

Brooks said 328 hours of training is needed to just become a firefighter. That includes the firefighter I and II courses, driving, pump operation, hazmat and other job requirements.

“And that’s just the mandatory. Every year we have to have refreshers,” he said. “You do not drive our trucks unless you can pump with the pump.”

Besides the additional training, the nature of the fire service has changed over the 25 years Laplante has been involved. When he first started, he mostly responded to house and chimney fires and only a few car accidents.

“We’re not just doing fire stuff anymore. We’re expected to do (emergency medical services) calls and we’re expected to do car accidents,” the Harrison chief said. “We’re a jack-of-all-trades. If there’s an emergency, people call 911 and expect the fire department to show (up).”

Now, emergency responses run the gamut from fires, accidents and medical issues to gas spills and leaks and fire and carbon monoxide alarm activations, Laplante added.

Laplante and St. Pierre look toward the models of Poland, Paris, Oxford, Woodstock and Greenwood for designated coverage during the day.

“I think the wave of the future … is putting people on during the day,” Laplante said. “As much as I don’t want to do that I think that’s one of the ways we’re going to solve daytime coverage problems.”

Frost ideally would like area fire departments to regionalize and share resources.

Roughly a decade or so ago, Frost and the Oxford and Norway fire chiefs looked into regionalizing at the request of their selectmen and town managers. They spent months working on a proposal, he said.

“We turned it in and nothing was ever said about it – positive or negative,” Frost said. “It went in the backroom and nothing happened with it.”

Paris selectmen are considering looking into the issue again, and regionalizing fire services is something Laplante said he could get behind.

“Especially in the chief’s position, there’s so much work for the chief to do that’s administrative in nature, there’s not enough time for the fire chief to do it,” he said. He has some clerks in Harrison and members of his department help him with paperwork, he said. “I could easily spend 40 hours a week doing the job. They’re not going to pay me 40 hours a week and I have to make a living to pay my bills.”

Neither Frost nor Jones want to go to a paid full-time department, but they can’t totally discount it, they said. Frost looked into it a while ago and didn’t remember the exact cost and Jones hasn’t explored it yet.

“It’s expensive anyway, then you start throwing in holidays, vacations and benefits and the cost goes up tremendously,” Frost said. “Most people who (fight fires) are in it because they want to help the community.”

Prior to arriving in Oxford, Jones worked in Westbrook, where the city’s paid full-time fire and rescue departments had a combined budget of $2.6 million. He noted most of that paid for salaries.

“To go full time that’s really tough for a community to swallow,” he said. “I don’t think we’re at that point yet but you always have to keep it on the shelf because you might be forced there.”

Brooks is looking for anyone who wants to help him out, not only those wanting to fight fires.

“I will take anybody that just wants to direct traffic,” he said. “I will take anybody.”

Those interested in serving on the Buckfield Fire Department can call Brooks at 336-2612 or the Town Office at 336-2521.

To help Paris Fire Department, call Frost at 743-6832 or visit the fire station at 137 Western Ave. during business hours.

To help Oxford Fire Department, call Jones at 539-4509 or email [email protected].

[email protected]

TO HELP

BUCKFIELD — Call Chief Tim Brooks, 336-2612, or the Town Office, 336-2521.

PARIS — Call Chief Brad Frost at 743-6832 or visit the Fire Station at 137 Western Ave.

OXFORD — Call Chief Wayne Jones at 539-4509 or email [email protected].