Sask. volunteer firefighters having hard time to keep up with recruitment

Saskatchewan wildfires are fierce and firefighters need all the help they can get. But the president Saskatchewan’s volunteer fire fighter association says they are having a hard time recruiting.

“I’ve lost a handful of very experienced people that served anywhere from 25 to 55 years on their local department. And trying to bring up the younger generation now into this service is becoming more difficult,” Aaron Buckingham says.

Buckinghgam says people are hestitant to join for a few reasons, but the greatest obstacle is balancing the demands of volunteering with work and family life, especially with higher costs of living.

“They can’t be leaving work to be able to come and volunteer, they can’t afford it. They’re worried about putting food on their family’s plates at home,” he says.

Dalas King, chief of the Outlook-Rudy Volunteer Fire Department, reports similar challenges, saying he’s happy to see one new volunteer a year. “We are volunteers, so we can’t expect everybody to drop at any time to go to stuff. They have families and families come first. It’s just, it it’s not a gig that all the young kids are looking for anymore.”

The tax credit for volunteer firefighters in Saskatchewan doubled this year to $6,000. Buckingham, however, says that savings is more of a bonus to current firefighters than an incentive to encourage others to sign up.

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Most people who do join are younger and have previous connections to their local fire department. But Buckingham says being out in the community also seems to attract people who want to help.

“We’re out and about in the community more than we have been in the past and people are paying attention to that. It’s actually helped me bring people in, for sure. And we’re not doing it to try to recruit people.”

King says those who do volunteer want to help their communities. “They know what’s coming towards them, so those are the ones that we usually see,” he says.

But it’s the relationships within the department that keep volunteers around. “You have to be able to trust the person on the hose with you with your life. So it becomes a real family,” Buckingham says.

Luke Lockhart, the deputy fire chief at the Outlook-Rudy department, calls those connections a “brotherhood” that forms among volunteers. “(That wasn’t) the big reason why I started but it’s the biggest reason why I’ve stayed around. It’s like a family everybody cares for each other.”

Azelyn Beckett-Swanepeol, a volunteer firefighter in Outlook-Rudy, echoes Lockhart’s statement. “I don’t know what I’m gonna see, but it’s just the matter of, we all have each other’s back. Like, there’s the support.”

Watch the video above for more on recruitment and retention.