They never did through the fire organization, it was voluntary thus no pay, beni’s etc. The problem was that bammycare doesn’t make any distinction between volunteer organizations and others. Thus volunteer organizations (who often have many volunteers to spread the burden) were going to be on the hook for either insurance or the penalty to the government, neither of which was affordable.
Luckily King Barack has seen fit to allow us to keep our volunteer fire departments for at least one more year.
I used to be General Superintendent at a short line railroad that had a large contingent of volunteer train buffs that would help staff and run weekend tourist passenger trains. I wonder if Dear Leader has exempted them... oh that’s right... dirty coal-burning steam locomotives have got to go.