Editor’s Note: The following is an updated and corrected version of an article first published in last week’’s edition of the Whitesboro News-Record.
We regret the errors made last week.
On Monday, Feb. 12, the City Council approved the Collinsville Fire Department (CFD) to hire seven to 10 part-time Firefighter/Paramedics and Firefighter/EMT’s. Fire Chief Damon Stewart said the department needs help to better serve the community.
To fill this need, CFD is planning on opening these positions to those that are already trained and have put in many hours with the department as volunteer firefighters, EMT’s and paramedics.
These part-time individuals will serve as PRN (“pro re nata” or “as thing is needed”) employees. Stewart said that volunteerism is dwindling, and that fire departments are losing thousands of volunteers a year across the state every year because people are too busy to volunteer during peak hours of the day.
CFD needs to cover times of day when the department is most vulnerable – times when Chief Stewart is out of the office on a call or attending to fire chief duties, or times when there is a known risk of high call volume, like during extremely high fire danger season.
The purpose of hiring these Firefighter/Paramedics and Firefighter/EMT’s is to fill in the gaps and ensure someone is at the fire station or available to respond to calls during these peak hours of the day, when the volunteers are unavailable.
“We want to be able to serve our citizens more efficiently,” Stewart said.
A standard shift is Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. These part-time employees would serve on a rotation basis, depending upon availability. They would be scheduled based on need, which would be determined by Chief Stewart.
According to Stewart, without these Firefighter/Paramedics and Firefighter/EMT’s in place, the department runs into several issues such as adequately licensed and medically trained personnel to respond to medical emergencies and adequately licensed drivers for the fire engines to respond to car wrecks, car fires and house fires.
When volunteers respond to the fire station for these types of emergencies there is no guarantee they will have the proper licensing, which would allow them to drive and operate the larger fire trucks.
“Some of our most active volunteers can’t operate the larger fire trucks,” Stewart said. “Having the part-time Firefighter/Paramedics and Firefighter/EMT’s in place means that properly licensed and adequate drivers are available to ensure these fire trucks can respond to those types of emergencies when the time comes.”
The fire department has budgeted the needed funds for these positions for the remainder of this year’s budget cycle, which ends Sept. 30.
“Opening these positions is a small baby step in where we need to be in the future,” Stewart said. “We already have the same capabilities as other fire departments in our area. We just need more manpower.”