50,000+ pop w/ volunteer services

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jefftherealmccoy

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Anyone know of any cities with a population of over 50,000 that run a volunteer fire/ambulance service?

One city council member here is trying to purpose a volunteer/combination department so we don't have to raise taxes in our city. The guy's out of his mind if you ask me. A city the size of ours with our call volume... plus we handle the entire county apart from the city which has a population of over100,000 and 1000 square miles... with a volunteer department?
 
it doesn't look like they have an ambulance service there. private maybe? i'm looking for an example of a fire/ems volunteer department w/o private ambulance.
 
Indianapolis up until 2002 had 3 volunteer fire departments, including the EMS service. Wayne Township (SW section of Indy, including the Airport) covered about 300,000 during the day.
 
jefftherealmccoy said:
it doesn't look like they have an ambulance service there. private maybe? i'm looking for an example of a fire/ems volunteer department w/o private ambulance.
Click to expand...

No, VA Beach EMS runs their own ambulances.
 
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I've heard of several department in South Carolina that run a combined department. Colleton County Fire & Rescue, Jasper County Fire & Rescue and Horry County Fire & Rescue to name a few. I know that most of the volunteers are for the fire side only and the ambulances are staffed by full or part time employees.
 
Prince Georges County Fire Dept in Maryland is a career department that is supplemented very heavily by volunteers. Their population is around 870,000. Some of the stations are 100% volly while some have 9-5 career staff, and others have 24/7 career staff.
 
Actually, if you concentrated the vollie firehouses in the less-populated county areas, assigned paid chauffeurs/engineers and captains, and contracted for ambulance transport, it could work. But setting up volunteer departments is an art as well as a science and it isn't cheap.
 
Hoboken. In NJ they are volunteer and the population is a little over 50k.
 
I know of several services that use volunteers to supplement the paid staff. Most of the vollies ride as third crew members.
 
My old vollies covered an area with a population of >200k. No paid staff to plug the gaps.
 
What kind of call volume are you looking at for that kind of area?
 
About 5k per year. Lots of retires and buffs who could spend all day answering calls.
 
City of Pasadena, CA (pop 137,000) Fire Department has an Emergency Medical Services Reserve (EMSR) where EMTs volunteer and serve as third riders on the front line ALS Rescue Ambulances, as well as special event stand by and a reserve disaster response.

www.emsr.org
 
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