Fuel price forcing firefighters to change emergency response

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Now that diesel prices have jumped well beyond $4 a gallon, the volunteer rescuers who protect most of the United States have begun rethinking how they respond to emergencies.

In state after state, fire chiefs are leaving fuel-guzzling pumpers and ladder trucks back at the station. They’re cutting out-of-town training for firefighters. They’re dipping into equipment budgets to save money and clustering errands to save mileage.

In one Pennsylvania department, firefighters even skip community parades because they can’t afford to drive the routes.

“We made the decision earlier this year,” said Ed Mann, who volunteers as the assistant chief in Mifflin County, Pa., where he’s also the state fire commissioner.

“The costs of fuel right now, it’s like a trickle-down effect everywhere,” Mann said.

The problems are the same across the country, where more than two-thirds of the geography is protected by an estimated 800,000 volunteers. Most of them work in rural areas, where they must drive long distances to emergencies and often rely on donations from spaghetti dinners and bingo nights.

“A lot of these [departments] are already struggling financially,” said David Finger, the vice president for government affairs for the National Volunteer Fire Council in Washington. “This is just heaped on top of it.”

Urban departments often are run by career firefighters and funded by city governments.

But in most of the United States, volunteers are the ones who throw on heavy suits and hop onto trucks to respond to emergencies ranging from forest fires to car wrecks to medical calls.

Even their smallest vehicles — pickups or SUVs — get less than 20 miles to the gallon. Ladder trucks get much less.

“Some of these big trucks, they only get three or four miles to the gallon,” said Kenn Fontenot, the assistant chief of the LeBlanc Volunteer Fire Department in south-central Louisiana and a state director for the National Volunteer Fire Council.

“They cost $600 to $700 to fill up,” he said. “That’s some money right there.”