The Tri-City Duty Crew, a daytime volunteer fire cooperative, is heading into its last phase before completion, though a start-up date remains undetermined.
The joint effort will create a daytime workforce of volunteers from the fire departments of New Kensington, Arnold and Lower Burrell to be deployed in unison to weekday fires between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The goal is to reduce response times, Lower Burrell No. 3 fire Chief Brennan Sites said.
He said the trek to operation, which started early last year, has been slow, but the finish line is drawing near.
“It’s a cross country race, not a track race,” Sites said. “It’s a little bit further behind than I’d like it to be, but we’re still making really good progress.”
Last week, programming was completed for the Tri-City alert tone, which will simultaneously notify all departments of a fire.
The alert tone is a “big win” for the cooperative and moves it into finalizing 911 run cards which will be live Monday, Sites said. Run cards dictate what departments and response methods are used to combat a fire.
“If you have everybody moving at the same time, you’re going to get resources, in theory, quicker to an emergency,” Sites said.
He said the fire departments have collaborated to make similar run cards to standardize response across the cities.
The departments started implementing the same safety and manpower protocols and resource allocation during fire response as a way to help develop the cards, he said.
For the final phase, the cooperative has to set up a nonprofit status so it can accept donations, he said.
New Kensington Fire Chief Ed Saliba Jr. said it is also in the process of figuring out work schedules for volunteers.
Saliba said quicker response times are critical because, every 45 seconds, a fire can double in size.
Having a daytime crew is a benefit to the whole community, he said.
“The quicker you get to an emergency scene, the better it is for everybody,” Saliba said.
Stronger together
The three cities’ fire departments often already respond to the same fires.
Sites said collaborating to bring the duty crew to life has strengthened the working bond, but that with any collaboration, there are cultural hurdles.
Differences among departments have proved to be an opportunity to learn, Sites said.
“We’re all different. We have very proud organizations, but we all have the same mission, and that’s serving our community,” Sites said. “So, collaboration has been great. Working together has been great.
“This area is very fortunate to have really good, experienced firefighters.”
Continued response standardization will only make interdepartmental collaboration stronger, he said.
Arnold has one fire station, New Kensington has five and Lower Burrell has two.
Ideally, the duty crew will be stationed together everyday in one fire hall, Arnold Chief Eric Gartley said.
Gartley said recent fires already have shown the success in streamlining department responses across the board.
“We’ve had less miscommunications, less freelancing where firefighters would just start doing their own things,” Gartley said. “Our tactics, our strategies … have been aligned. Whenever we do go to operate again, we’re all working towards the same goal in the same manner.”
A model program right next door
In Plum, a similar daytime fire crew took form last year, servicing the borough from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.
“We’ve had some fires where the (daytime crew) was first on the scene,” Holiday Park Fire Chief Jim Sims said.
It is governed by the Plum Fire Chief’s Association. It pays volunteers through a stipend program, which offers up to $12,900 a year, which is a little less than one-third of a professional firefighting salary.
Sims said the program has boosted volunteerism in all four of the borough’s departments.
At the Holiday Park fire station, it has garnered about four new volunteers in the last year, Sims said.
The stipend program has 35 total members as not all volunteers are part of it.
“The stipend program has solidified who we are,” he said. “It’s definitely helped cooperation between the four (borough) departments.”
Sites said the Plum program is what the Tri-City Duty Crew is trying to duplicate.
Figuring out volunteer payment is part of the crew’s third phase toward completion, Sites said.
Once it sets up a nonprofit status, it can receive donations to fund a similar stipend program to Plum’s, he said.
“We have to set up the nonprofit, because the cities cannot legally just give us money to pay us, because then we become employees,” Sites said.
Dwindling volunteers, a temporary solution
Across the state, volunteerism is on the decline.
In 2021, Pennsylvania was estimated to have just under 40,000 fire volunteers, according to the Associated Press. In the 1970s, that number was about 360,000, according to The National Volunteer Fire Council and the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
Saliba and Sites pointed to increased cost of living and generational changes as possible decline factors.
Sites also said, in the past, people were often recruited into the service by family members, which doesn’t happen as often now.
The strained volunteer workforce is not an easy fix, and the solution may require more money, he said.
“The Tri-City crew is not the solution — it’s a Band-Aid to the larger problem. But it’s a step in the right direction to where we need to be,” Sites said. “The best solution is long-term strategic planning, in the next decade, for some sort of paid department.
“We’ve been having a conversation with all of our governments like, ‘I understand that money is an issue, but at some point we’re going to have to figure it out because volunteers are not going to be here for forever.’ ”
In New Kensington, Saliba said, in light of decreased volunteers, the stations rely on the helping hands of retired firefighters for day-to-day work, such as taking engines to be inspected.
He said that kind of help makes a big difference on the department’s operations.
Sims, the Plum chief, also said small acts of help from the community help keep the departments running.
“We need members and donations,” he said. “We need people to come down and work bingos, work fish fries. … Maybe you just come down and mow the grass.”