“Answering the alarm: Latinos bolster sagging ranks of local volunteer fire departments”

For Esteban Hernández, there was a perception to overcome when it came to volunteering for his local fire department.

“I always wanted to join but I thought it was this racial thing ” that you had to know someone to get in,” said Hernández, 28, a Port Chester firefighter who moved from El Salvador when he was 5. “(Latinos) think ‘there’s no way they’re going to accept me.’ That’s their mentality. But then they realize you’re treated like a normal person. There’s no discriminating.”

Hernández, a landscaper who’s been with the department for more than a year, is part of a new wave of volunteer firefighters in the Lower Hudson Valley, where Latin American immigrants are bolstering the ranks of several departments.

From Peekskill to Haverstraw, fire officials say Latinos are helping staff firehouses ” all-volunteer and some with a smattering of career members ” to combat a statewide decline in membership as the number of emergency calls has increased.

Their motivations for joining these predominantly white male establishments differ. Some volunteered as a way to give back to their new communities. Others were inspired by the emergency response at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Dery Fernandez, 24, had his own reasons for joining the Haverstraw fire department in 2008.

“I wanted to do something that was over the edge, a lot of adrenaline,” Fernandez said.

Their membership also comes as other fire departments in the tri-state area, including those in New York City and New Haven, have contended with lawsuits over their treatment of minorities.

In Port Chester, the village’s department is now swelling with Spanish speakers after historically being manned by immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Poland and Germany.

Between 40 and 50 members have Latino ties, according to Second Assistant Chief Mike DeVittorio, an essential infusion of labor for a department down about 100 bodies from its heyday. That influx started about 25 years ago, he said.

They hail from Cuba, Peru, El Salvador, Mexico and Chile, among other places, a mostly working-class group that includes chefs, landscapers, maintenance workers and the village’s first Latino to hold elected office. There are even Portuguese-speaking firefighters from Brazil.

“Volunteer fire service is one of the great assimilation success stories in the United States,” DeVittorio told The Journal News. “It is a social center that provides (immigrants) a way to become part of the wider community. And without them, we would have a problem.”

That problem he’s referring to is challenging volunteer departments nationwide, according to the National Fire Protection Association, as there was an 8.6 percent decrease in volunteer firefighters from 2008 to 2011. The Firemen’s Association of the State of New York says the number of volunteer firefighters in the state has dropped from about 110,000 in 2000 to 88,000 in 2011.

Departments across the country are establishing paid positions, increasing stipends and seeking government grants to combat the decline in free labor for emergency services. Fire officials say time and location are contributing to that downward trend, as volunteers can’t manage the required instruction and no longer regularly work where they live.

In the all-volunteer firefighter community in Rockland, municipalities are relying on people from all racial, ethnic and religious communities to staff the county’s 26 departments.

Gordon Wren Jr., county coordinator of fire and emergency services, said a spike in Latino membership, in particular, is noticeable in fire departments in the villages of West Haverstraw and Spring Valley.

In the village of Haverstraw, the fire department said in the past five years, 82 people have joined. Fifty of them, or about 60 percent, identified as Hispanic or Latino ” which the federal government defines as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture regardless of race ” in a village where that demographic accounts for nearly 70 percent of the population.

Wren, a veteran member of the Hillcrest Fire Department, added that his department has been working with its Latino volunteers to help recruit their fellow immigrants to become firefighters.

“Ideally, fire departments should reflect the makeup of the community,” he said. “If you don’t speak English well, it may be intimidating to join a fire company or any kind of organization if you don’t know anyone. We want to open the door. We want to make them feel welcome.”

There is no citizenship requirement to become a volunteer firefighter, according to the state, though fire officials said departments typically have different procedures for confirming if a potential member is living legally in the United States.

Several volunteer departments in areas with expanding Latino populations appear to be benefiting from these changing demographics. But departments surveyed by The Journal News in communities where Latinos accounted for less than 10 percent of the population generally did not report a significant increase in membership over the last 10 years.

Not every volunteer fire department in a community with a sizable Latino population is benefiting from this apparent trend.

Those identifying as Hispanic or Latino account for more than half of the population in the village of Brewster in Putnam County. But Brewster Fire Chief Bill Rieg said the department has only one application from someone of that background.

“I am surprised because I thought there would be more,” Rieg said. “Anybody who wants to come is welcome. Maybe they don’t know we’re a volunteer department.”

USA Today contributed to this report.