PRESS RELEASE

9-21-09

Recent Mill Fire points out the need for additional volunteers

The recent Mill Fire in Weaverville is an example of the many incidents handled by volunteer firefighters. 

“We had 19 of our 23 volunteer firefighters respond to the scene that day” said Weaverville’s Interim Fire Chief Scott Alvord.  These nineteen volunteers along with four from Lewiston Volunteer Fire Department, eight from Douglas City VFD and two from Junction City VFD basically stripped a majority of personnel from these agencies.  “If another incident would have occurred we would have had to scramble to respond” stated Chief Alvord.

All volunteer fire departments in the County are in need of additional help and are in a continuous recruitment mode.  In addition to volunteer firefighters all agencies could use assistance for support personnel. Examples of support personnel duties would include vehicle maintenance, station maintenance, equipment inventory and maintenance, life and safety inspections and incident support.  All these chores are currently performed by the volunteer firefighters in addition to responding to calls and spending up to sixteen hours a month for training. 

There may be members of the community that are not interested in firefighting but could assist in these other areas.  This would take a burden off of the firefighters to perform these additional tasks.

If interested in volunteering some time please contact your local volunteer fire department.  For Weaverville contact us at 623-6156.