We have a whole lot more people in our city than in Scranton and our fire department is about 90% volunteer. City provides PPE, training two evenings a week and all day on Saturday and free pagers. Works great for us, is a good way for people to give back to the community and keeps costs low. But applicants do have to have a clean criminal and driving record.
I read somewhere once that only 6% of fire dept responses were actually for fires....