Ruch, Ore., — “Now a days we find, especially a lot of smaller rural departments, rely on each other. Help each other out. There isn’t any fire department out there that can stand on their own, and operate on their own.”
Captain Mike Kuntz is a full time captain for the Applegate Fire District in Ruch, but when he isn’t there, he has a part time job as fire chief of the Williams Fire District.
“I’ve been a chief out in Williams for about 8 years, and a full time captain here for about 11 years.”
Fire season hit both communities hard this last year — Williams saw 200 fires, and the Applegate — 700.
Even though the need is there — Kuntz says finding volunteer firefighters is a big problem for both areas.
“The younger people you know they go to the bigger cities, they go to college, they don’t stick around like they used to in farming communities.”
He says it isn’t for lack of trying either.
“We’ve had signs up, we’ve had an open house for the last 3 years. it’s on our answering machine, there’s a pdf application on our website you can fill out, people just aren’t doing it.”
While it’s affecting these communities in a big way — they’re not the only areas lacking.
“Roughly the volunteer fire service lost 400,000 members in the last decade.”
So what’s the solution? For Kuntz — it’s about finding more creative ways to recruit people.
“Whether it’s a student intern program, a resident firefighter program, ingenious ways to get volunteers to join your fire department. We’re gonna continue to recruit here at Applegate, we always do, annually. In Williams also.”
If you would like to be a volunteer firefighter in Williams, you can find out more information here: http://www.wrfpd.org/volunteer.html
If you would like to be a volunteer firefighter in the Applegate, you can find out more information here: http://www.applegatefd.com/
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