Fire call sounds for more recruits at area departments

MANCHESTER — Back before he became a Manchester firefighter, Jim Bowker, chief of the Manchester Fire Department, still had a desire to get involved when the fire siren sounded.

Back in his younger days, if he heard the siren he’d hop in his car, track down the fire truck and follow it to the scene of the blaze.

“If I could find the fire truck before they left the station, that’d be good,” Bowker said. “Otherwise I’d follow the water, because the water would spill out of the tanks when they rounded a corner, so I’d say, ‘they must have gone this way.'”

Either way, he’d get to the scene.

“Even back then they were light-handed, so I’d get out and ask them how much hose they wanted pulled off the truck,” Bowker said. “I did that a couple times and they said, ‘why don’t you join?,’ so I said, ‘OK.'”

He was 28 when he signed up, and the now 67-year-old fire chief hasn’t quit yet.

If he ever saw anybody chasing his trucks today, he said he’d be quick to hand them an application to sign up.

“We can always use more volunteers,” Bowker said. “Always.”

To put it in perspective, Bowker said that approximately 3,000 people are served by the Manchester Fire Department, while fewer than 1 percent of them volunteer.

In an attempt to boost those volunteer numbers, more than 400 fire departments statewide welcomed members of the community to tour their stations as part of RecruitNY this past weekend.

The fire stations, including departments in Manchester, Farmington, Fishers, Richmond, Clifton Springs, East Bloomfield-Holcomb and Hopewell, opened their bay doors to the public, giving tours, demonstrating firefighting techniques and allowing visitors to try on turnout gear.

Members discussed the requirements and the benefits that come with volunteering.

The total number of volunteer firefighters peaked at about 110,000 in 1990 in New York, but the number had dipped below 85,000 by 2010, according to the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York (FASNY).

John Weidenborner, second assistant chief of the Farmington Volunteer Fire Association, noted that the most recent numbers suggest that the numbers have leveled, but the demand is still there.

“It’s nerve-racking when you get a structure fire — trying to make sure that you have enough people coming,” Weidenborner said. “You want to be worrying about safety, about protecting the public, and the short number adds a little extra stress to it.”

The Farmington Volunteer Fire Association has 40 volunteers, and averages right around 400 calls a year — responding to everything from vehicle accidents and structure fires to CO2 alarms, plus the occasional false alarm.

“This year is looking to be a busy year for us,” Weidenborner said. “We’ve done more structure fires this year than we have done in the last four years combined.”

To do what they do takes a willingness to train, dedication and the desire to help out, Weidenborner said, putting extra emphasis on the time it takes to train.

The multitude of ages of potential volunteers are welcome also.

“People might think they’re too old to join the fire service — ‘my knees are too bad, my back is too bad, I have a hurt shoulder’ — but there is no one job in the fire service,” said Lt. Alex Colburn, of the Manchester Fire Department.

Mike Freeland, retired from a Canandaigua-based factory, joined the Manchester department in November. Before the hot dogs began to be handed out during Saturday’s recruiting event, he took the time to give his wife and grandchildren a tour of the station grounds.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Freeland said.

Rich Rice, who has lived in Manchester since 1988, started volunteering for the department a couple months after Freeland.

Rice shared his story, saying that he retired from a beverage operation and took up school-bus driving in order to keep on contributing to his community — and, after an unsuccessful run for a town justice vacancy, figured it was time to give volunteer firefighting a go.

“I said to them, ‘Don’t thank me for joining, I thank you for the 27 years of fire protection you afforded me and my family in this town,'” Rice said. “It’s time for me to give back.”