Being a volunteer firefighter involves a lot of sacrifices. Firefighters sacrifice their time, their health and sometimes even their lives to help protect the lives of their fellow citizens. But over the years, the time commitment required just to complete the initial firefighter training has grown considerably.
Newark Fire Chief Jerry VanDeWalle told the Times of Wayne County on Thursday that when he first joined the fire department 38 years ago, the initial firefighting training took 36 hours to complete.
“When I took it, 38 years ago, you took just the basic essential fireman training to familiarize yourself with the equipment,” VanDeWalle explained. “Then if you wanted to learn how to run a truck or climb a ladder, you took that all at your own leisure, whenever you wanted to take it.
“Now, they’ve got it up to 105 hours. They’ve put that all into one and you have to take it all.”
The training that VanDeWalle said takes 105 hours to complete is called “Firefighter One”, and is only required for members who want to be interior firefighters. VanDeWalle said that even the training required for to be a fire police member – who help direct traffic and provide additional scene support – now takes 24 hours to complete.
Newark FD is made up entirely of volunteer firefighters. According to VanDeWalle, they have 150 members, 40 to 45 of them are active members. To be an active member of Newark FD, the firefighters have to do 20 hours of additional training each year.
Newark, VanDeWalle acknowledged, is lucky because they have enough people in the village to where they don’t have too much trouble finding younger members, but he said that it does hurt some of the smaller departments.
“Marbletown, Fairville, East Palmyra and some of these smaller towns, they don’t have the people that can join,” VanDeWalle said. “They’re raising the hours on all of these trainings and it makes it tough for some of the firefighters to even be able to go through because they’re either working two jobs or they’ve got a family.”
Jake Fox, a captain for the North Rose Fire Department, said that the Firefighter One training is certainly time-consuming but that it is worth it to be able to something he loves and has always wanted to do.
“Firefighter One is a little more physical. It’s for interior firefighting, so you’re going through mazes, you’re doing evolutions,” Fox explained. “It wasn’t hard, but it was work. I didn’t go home exhausted every single day.”
According to Lyons Fire Chief Bob Darcangelis, the only requirements for applying to be a member of the department is that the person applying is 18 years old, has at least six months of residency in Lyons, a valid driver’s license and can pass the background check. Then the current members vote whether to accept the applicant, which Darcangelis said very few of them get denied. He said the process to become a member takes two to three months, not including training.
Darcangelis explained that the fire department is like a second family and new members typically come from a newer generation of the longtime members’ families, which can be intimidating to so called “outsiders.”
“It’s tough to come into something where you don’t know anybody,” Darcangelis said. “I always tell them, ‘Don’t feel that you aren’t welcome, just come in and after a while everybody will be talking to you,’ but it’s tough to start out.”
The family aspect of firefighting spans across multiple departments and surrounding departments in the area and are always ready to help their neighbors through mutual aid. Lyons FD Assistant Chief Jeff Rios said that they have an automatic mutual aid agreement with Oaks Corners, which means that Lyons assists them automatically with any structure fire they get called to. But Rios said that they will help any department that asks them for help and that all of the departments in the area are the same way.
At the end of the day, most volunteer firefighters are doing the job because they’re passionate for it, and they’re willing to go through any training that’s required to let them follow their passion.
“You’re helping people in their time of need,” Assistant Chief for North Rose FD Seth Hysack said. “There’s not a lot of ‘thank yous’ in this job profession, but [the most rewarding part] is just knowing that, when you go home at the end of the day, you made a difference.”
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