When I’ve talked to paid firefighters, you can see from their evasive responses that they know they’re not all that they’re cracking themselves up to be WRT “Why not have volunteer departments?”
Where I have lived for the last 10+ years in two locations, the departments are volunteer, and they do quite well for what they have and the amount of ground they have to cover.
It’s high time that communities start going back to volunteer fire and law enforcement groups, and if they can’t do that, then they need to crack down on unionized workforces negotiating pensions that are simply unsupportable in the long run.
Another thing that has to happen is that people need to quit buying the BS that these “public safety” types keep peddling - that they’re working oh so very hard at such a great risk to their lives and safety.
How many firefighters die on the job per year? Between 70 and a bit over 100 per year, over the last 10 years.
Now, how many farmers and ranchers are killed on the job per year?
More than 500. About 100 farm/ranch kids are killed on the farm or ranch per year.
You don’t hear of farmers or ranchers getting fat-assed pension plans, do you? Nor unionizing to demand higher food prices.
Firefighters should man up and STFU. They’re not so terribly special. Cops die in slightly higher numbers on the job per year.
Neither comes close to the rate at which loggers, fishermen, etc die per year. We don’t see loggers getting huge pension plans, either.
At some point, someone has to just lay out the facts and tell the truth. The truth is, cops and firemen aren’t all that special. Their jobs aren’t the most hazardous, they’re not all that physically demanding by comparison to logging, fishing, ranching and farming, and they can be performed by volunteers.
The USSR tried “volunteer farming” on their collectives. Didn’t work out so well.
I agree. I am a retired public safety person. I was also a Director of Public Safety and had 25 volunteer/part paid fire fighters.
I would put my guys up against any full time guys I know. My town of 40,000 where I live could easily go to a volunteer department and not suffer. They artificially inflate response numbers by rolling on medical calls.
We need to look at things differently because we are out of money and out of options.
I agree. I am a retired public safety person. I was also a Director of Public Safety and had 25 volunteer/part paid fire fighters.
I would put my guys up against any full time guys I know. My town of 40,000 where I live could easily go to a volunteer department and not suffer. They artificially inflate response numbers by rolling on medical calls.
We need to look at things differently because we are out of money and out of options.
Here in NJ most departments are volunteers; the problem is that some of the paid ones remaining are from a bygone era when manufacturing/chemical type fires were the threat (and those companies picked up much of the tab of that protection). In my town police aren’t in a dangerous line of work (though anything can happen - we are between Newark & Jersey City, and do get some non-violent crime from Newark); firefighters are always in danger dealing with fire but don’t have many fires here.
As their unions keep their stranglehold on the taxpayers, the response has been the flight of American taxpayers and businesses, as well as a surge in illegal apartments to help homeowners defray those tax costs. The result is a town that resembles a South American city more than an American one; I don’t think there has been discussion about what to do about illegal aliens, but our town of 40K would lose about 1/4 of its population (and 1/2 of its businesses) if they left.
They live “off the grid”, contributing nothing for the fire, police, school or town services provided, leaving the remaining Americans to deal with the costs.