See also the FirefighterFirefighters, or firemen, are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car accidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...
article and its respective sections regarding VFDs in other countries.
A
volunteer fire department (
VFD) is a
fire departmentA fire department is a public or private organization that provides fire protection for a certain jurisdiction, which typically is a municipality, county, or fire protection district. A fire department usually contains one or more fire stations within its boundaries, and may be staffed by career...
composed of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. According to the
National Volunteer Fire Council, 73 percent of firefighters in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
are members of VFDs.
The first organized force of firefighters was the Corps of Vigilesin
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
.
The term "volunteer" contrasts with career firefighters who are full-time firefighters, working organized shifts, usually based in a centrally located
firehouseA fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...
.
See also the FirefighterFirefighters, or firemen, are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car accidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...
article and its respective sections regarding VFDs in other countries.
A
volunteer fire department (
VFD) is a
fire departmentA fire department is a public or private organization that provides fire protection for a certain jurisdiction, which typically is a municipality, county, or fire protection district. A fire department usually contains one or more fire stations within its boundaries, and may be staffed by career...
composed of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. According to the
National Volunteer Fire Council, 73 percent of firefighters in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
are members of VFDs.
The first organized force of firefighters was the Corps of Vigilesin
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
.
The term "volunteer" contrasts with career firefighters who are full-time firefighters, working organized shifts, usually based in a centrally located
firehouseA fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...
. Some volunteer departments may operate as part of a
combination systemA combination fire department is a type of fire department which consists of both career and volunteer firefighters. In the United States, combination fire departments are typically tax-supported in some fashion, and generally have an annual call volume larger than purely volunteer departments...
, 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 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).
In the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
there are almost no separate volunteer fire departments with the only exception being the now disbanded
Auxiliary Fire ServiceThe Auxiliary Fire Service was first formed in 1938 in Great Britain as part of Civil Defence Air raid precautions. Its role was to supplement the work of brigades at local level. In this job it was hampered severely by incompatibility of equipment used by these different brigades - most...
, but part-time members of fire brigades who man smaller, often rural, stations are known as
retained firefighters. In the
Republic of IrelandIreland is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921. It is a parliamentary democracy and a republic...
, the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) is still very much in existence and is a branch of the national civil defence organisation. The service is usually only called upon for large-scale incidents where the resources of front-line fire brigades are stretched.
Financial support
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 aidMutual aid may refer to:*Mutual aid , a tenet of anarchist thought*Mutual aid , an agreement between emergency responders*Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, a biology book by anarchist Peter Kropotkin...
(or automatic aid) pact as a means for assisting each other with equipment and manpower, when necessary.
Expanded duties
Depending upon the location and availability of other services, a VFD may be responsible for controlling
structure fireA structure fire is a fire involving the structural components of various residential or commercial buildings, such as single-family homes, townhouses, apartments, high-rises, and shopping malls. This is in contrast to, "room content" fires, chimney fires, automobile fires, wildfires or other...
s as well as
forest firesA bushfire is a fire that occurs in the bush . In south east Australia, bushfires tend to be most common and most severe during summer and autumn, in drought years, and particularly severe in El Niño years...
. 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 technicianEmergency medical technician is a term used in various countries to denote a healthcare provider trained to provide pre-hospital emergency medical services....
s, 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 safetyFire safety refers to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of a fire that may result in death, injury, or property damage, alert those in a structure to the presence of a fire in the event one occurs, better enable those threatened by a fire to survive, or to reduce the...
and
prevention*Fire safety*Firefighting...
education, in addition to being the local
civil defenseCivil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to prepare non combatant's for military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...
or disaster relief liaison.
Emergency response
A Volunteer Fire Department is normally reached the same way as other emergency services, such as by calling
9-1-19-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan . It is one of eight N11 codes...
. A central dispatcher then calls out the VFD, often through equipment such as
pagerA pager is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then expected to call...
s,
radioRadio is the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
s, 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 volunteer fire departments allow the use of
Courtesy lightsCourtesy Lights are used by volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians to expedite their drive to their firehouse or ambulance base...
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. In other jurisdictions, this may be a 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. 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, and the size and amount of other traffic in the fire district. 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.
Training
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 vigors of further fire training.
Specialty training can include wildland firefighting, technical rescue, swift water rescue, hazardous materials response, vehicle extrication,
FAST teamA Firefighter Assist and Search Team , also known as a Rapid Intervention Team/Crew , is a team of two or more firefighters dedicated solely to search and rescue of other firefighters in distress. FAST shall have no other operational assignment during an incident...
, and others.
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