See also the Firefighter article and its respective sections regarding VFDs in other countries.
A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department composed of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction.
The first organized force of firefighters was the Corps of Vigiles in Rome.
The term "volunteer" contrasts with career firefighters who are full-time/professional firefighters, working organized shifts, usually based in a centrally located firehouse. Some volunteer departments may operate as part of a combination system, where paid firefighters also provide emergency services. In this way, a station can be regularly staffed for rapid response with apparatus, and the volunteers provide supplementary staffing and/or staffed apparatus before, during, and after an incident, or while the career staff are out of service doing training.
The term "volunteer" may also be used in reference to a group of part-time or on-call firefighters who may have other occupations when not engaged in occasional firefighting. Although they may have "volunteered" to become members, and to respond to the call for help, they are not compensated as employees during the time they are responding to or attending an emergency scene, and possibly even for training drills. An on-call firefighter would probably be expected to volunteer time for other non-emergency duties as well (training, fundraising, equipment maintenance, etc.).
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Volunteer fire departments are providing the majority of Germany's and Austria's civil protection services, alongside other volunteer organizations like Technisches Hilfswerk, voluntary ambulance services and emergency medical or rescue services. In most rural fire departments, the staff consists only of volunteers. The members of these departments are usually on-call 24/7 and working in other professions.
In medium-sized cities and communities, fire departments will often be partially staffed by career firefighters. They ensure the rapid availability of some of the department's fire apparatus, with the remaining apparatus staffed and brought to the scene of the emergency by volunteers as soon as they arrive at the department.
Larger cities, typically those with 100,000 inhabitants or more, will operate fire departments staffed completely by career firefighters. However, they also typically have several volunteer fire departments, who are called upon in case of larger emergencies.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, 71 percent of firefighters in the United States are volunteers.[1] The National Volunteer Fire Council represents the fire and emergency services on a national level, providing advocacy, information, resources, and programs to support volunteer first responders. The Firemen's Association of the State of New York (FASNY) provides information, education and training for the volunteer fire and emergency medical services throughout New York State.
The Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) in the Republic of Ireland is a branch of the national civil defence organisation. The service is usually only called upon for flooding incidents, emergency water supply and large-scale incidents where the resources of front-line fire brigades are stretched.[2]
In Finland the firefighting in the countryside mostly depends on volunteer fire departments, nearly always with a contract with the regional emergency authorities (or, formerly and in Åland, the municipality). There are volunteer fire departments also in cities, but there with a minor role.
In the United Kingdom there are three volunteer fire departments. The Auxiliary Fire Service is now disbanded, but part-time members of fire brigades who man smaller, often rural, stations are known as retained firefighters. Retained firefighters are fully trained personnel who provide cover on top of their regular jobs and live in the vicinity of a fire station. The only volunteer fire stations can be found at Gordonstoun School in the Grampian area of Scotland, and pupils over the age of 16 may train to become firefighters and respond to calls within the vicinity (although they are not paid). Another volunteer fire station is in Peterborough, England, this is manned by the Peterborough Volunteer Fire Brigade. This fire station whilst operating like a Retained unit is contrated to provide a service to the Cambridgeshire Fire Service. There is also Borth Volunteer Fire Station, near Aberystwyth, Wales.
In Nicaragua there are three different groups of firefighters, two are ruled by the Direccion General de Bomberos which has government support and the other one is ruled by the Federación de Cuerpos de Bomberos de Nicaragua which are Benemeritos who are volunteers firefighters like Benemerito Cuerpo de Bomberos de Masaya
In Chile, the firefighting force is one-hundred percent voluntary.
Throughout Australia there are many volunteer firefighting departments which are set up by the individual states or territories. New South Wales is serviced by two statutory firefighting authorities. These are the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS) and Fire and Rescue NSW. Fire and Rescue NSW has firefighting responsibilities for the major cities, metropolitan areas and several other towns in NSW. The NSWRFS is the volunteer firefighting service in NSW and consists of over 70,000 volunteers and has responsibility for over 90% of the land area in NSW. Although most of this is bush and grass land, the NSWRFS also serve smaller and regional communities that are not covered by Fire and Rescue NSW.
In Victoria, there are three main fire fighting organisations, Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board (MFB), Country Fire Authority (CFA) and The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE). The CFA is a volunteer and community based fire and emergency services organisation that is made up of around 61,000 members. Of these members, some 59,000 are volunteers See CFA Website. Their roles range from fire and rescue, to non-operational support roles.
A VFD may be financially supported by taxes raised in a city, town, county, fire district, or other governmental entity, as well as corporate and other private donations, federal grants, and other assistance from auxiliary members, or firefighters' associations.
With these funds the VFD acquires and operates the firefighting apparatus, equips and trains the firefighters, maintains the firehouse, and possibly also covers insurance, worker's compensation, and other post-injury or retirement benefits. A VFD (or its governing entity) may also contract with other nearby departments to cover each other in a mutual aid (or automatic aid) pact as a means for assisting each other with equipment and manpower, when necessary.
Depending upon the location and availability of other services, a VFD may be responsible for controlling structure fires as well as forest fires. Because it may be the only emergency services department for some distance, a rural VFD may also be fortunate to include first responders, emergency medical technicians, Hazardous Materials response, and other specially qualified rescue personnel. Law enforcement officers may also be trained in these related duties and overlap with the VFD. The VFD may also have duties as the local fire inspectors, arson investigators, and as fire safety and prevention education, in addition to being the local civil defense or disaster relief liaison.
A Volunteer Fire Department is normally reached the same way as other emergency services, such as by calling 9-1-1 or 1-1-2. A central dispatcher then calls out the VFD, often through equipment such as pagers, radios, or loud signals, such as a fire siren. Average response times may be longer than with full-time services because the members must come from different distances to the station or to the incident. However, there is a possibility that more firefighters may arrive at an incident with a volunteer department, as compared to paid departments. Such departments often have a fixed number of firefighters on staff at any given point in time, which sometimes equals the minimal numbers recommended. Some states allow the use of Length of Service Award Programs (LOSAPS) to provide these volunteer departments with a tool to assist in recruiting and retaining members. LOSAPS are simple programs that can be implemented with minimal taxpayer expense.
Some volunteer fire departments allow the use of Courtesy lights or emergency lights and sirens by its members. In most states that allow both lights and sirens, this is a red light and siren that gives the responding member the same privileges as other emergency vehicles.[3] In other jurisdictions, this may be a green or blue light without a siren (Courtesy lights), that only requests the right of way, and does not give the responding member any privileges to break traditional traffic laws.[4] The use of such equipment varies from fire district to fire district based on need for fast response, distance that members live from the fire station, the size and amount of other traffic in the fire district as well as local and state law. Some departments restrict or prohibit use of such emergency lights, even when allowed by state law, due to the increased risk of traffic accidents involving volunteers responding in emergency mode. In some states, volunteer firefighters and EMTs are eligible to receive specialty license plates for personal vehicles that identify them as trained emergency services personnel.
All operational volunteer fire department members receive some form of training, either in a formal or informal setting; This depends on the state and regulatory authority. The level and type of basic and specialty training varies across the country. Many volunteer fire departments have training programs equal to that of paid departments. New members are referred to as "recruits," "rookies," "probies" (short for "probationary"), or even "red hats" in some departments that require the recruit to wear special gear or markings (such as a red helmet in some departments) to denote their ranking. Some departments allow (or even require) new recruits to ride along on fire apparatus as observers before undergoing the rigors of further fire training.
Specialty training can include wildland firefighting, technical rescue, swift water rescue, hazardous materials response, vehicle extrication, FAST team, and others.