Volunteer Firefighters

The complaint of the largest firefighters union in Orange County that volunteer firefighters are not trained sufficiently and should not be used obviously is self-serving. But the complaint appears ready to produce one good result: an improvement in volunteers’ training.

Most Orange County residents are served by full-time, paid firefighters. As the county has become more urbanized, and more cities have become incorporated, full-timers have replaced volunteers.

The same is true across the country, where volunteers are prevalent in rural areas. Cities, especially bigger ones, opt for full-timers rather than volunteers who are paid only for each alarm they answer.

The Assn. of Orange County Professional Firefighters began targeting the volunteer system for elimination several months ago. The association represents firefighters who are members of the Orange County Fire Authority, which serves 19 of the 31 cities and unincorporated areas, with a total population of about 1 million people. That’s less than half the county’s total population.

The association says volunteers receive minimal training and need not be emergency medical technicians. The union says that’s important because four out of five calls received are for medical aid.

Still, it’s not as if volunteers walk in off the street and jump on the back of the truck. The newcomers must undergo 150 hours of fire training. Another 48 hours is devoted to instruction in how to apply bandages, check vital signs and perform CPR.

That’s a good amount of preparation, though full-time firefighters receive more: 560 hours to become recruits and another 100 hours to become certified emergency medical technicians. Both full-time and paid-call volunteers also undergo monthly training.

The Fire Authority’s spokesman, Capt. Scott Brown, said the department is considering offering more advanced medical and firefighting classes for volunteers.

City officials say it would cost too much to use just full-timers. The Fire Authority says it now spends about $2.8 million a year for approximately 600 volunteers. That money would pay for only about 31 full-timers.

Improving training and expanding the classes offered to volunteers would benefit the firefighters and the residents they serve. The current system calls for having full-time firefighters respond first to a call. Paid-call volunteers are summoned to staff an empty fire station or back up the crew at the scene of a fire.

Firefighters assert that the dispute is causing hard feelings between full-timers and volunteers. That has to stop. The union and the Fire Authority need to remind all firefighters that their first concern is public safety. The quarrel has to be put aside once the firetrucks leave the station.