VFDs appeal to Millennials’ passion for extreme activites

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — As numbers of volunteer firefighters decline in West Virginia, the West Virginia Fire Fighters Association is looking at ways to improve recruiting. The association has settled on two areas of influence to attract youngsters to the fire service, one is the requirement for community service.

Appealing to the adventure side of today’s young people for the volunteer fire service

“There are several high school students looking for community service hours and the volunteer fire department is the perfect place to get those hours,” said John Holstein, legislative director for the West Virginia Firemen’s Association. “They don’t have to participate in anything dangerous if they don’t want to, and if they’re a junior volunteer fire fighter they can’t participate in anything dangerous anyway.”

However, the danger is the other side of the new recruiting plan. Holstein says they are adapting from the way they’ve always advertised the fire service in recruiting to sell it to young people as the equivalent of the popular “extreme” sports which are so prevalent with today’s young generation.

“We’re running into burning buildings where the rats are running out,” Holstein explained. “How much more exciting, how much more adventurous, how much more extreme could it get than what we do with the fire service.”

He adds all of that could be done on the fire department’s dime during training. Holstein hoped the idea would work and more young people will be drawn to serve. He said the shortage of volunteer firemen has become critical, not only in West Virginia, but nationwide.

“For the last 20 years the recruitment and retention in the volunteer fire service has been steadily decreasing,” he said. “We’re getting to the point now that a lot of the fire departments in West Virginia and nationwide are having a hard time recruiting new members.”

But Holstein said one of their slogans for the new recruiting push is, “This is not your grandfather’s volunteer fire department.”

“Each individual department is different, all have different needs, but at the very least you’ll get automobile accident extrication training, first aid CPR, you can get into EMS if you want,” he said. “We offer a lot of exciting, adventurous type training like high angle rescue, scuba, mountain rescue, ice rescue, just all kinds of different things young folks can get trained in all on the fire department’s dime.”

To learn more about the opportunities with the volunteer fire service, you can start HERE.





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