By Daniel Bethers
Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus
COLONA, Ill. 鈥� Volunteer fire departments across the country are approaching a crisis point as they try to meet modern challenges.
Small-town departments surrounding the Quad-Cities are no exception.
For nearly a decade, media coverage of experts and advocates from the National Volunteer Fire Council has cast grim portents on what will become of services that no one pays for but everyone has come to expect. Services face pressure from increasing regulations, expanding roles and a lack of updates in funding mechanisms.
In response, fire-protection districts like Colona are looking at referendums to support their departments鈥� growing needs and warning that without new funding, they may need to cut back on services.
The work has grown complex
Volunteer firefighters make up over 65% of the United States鈥� firefighting force, Colona Fire Chief John Swan Sr. said, with 676,000 individuals risking life and limb unpaid to save people and property in their local communities.
But the number is declining. It has fallen by hundreds of thousands since the 1970s, even as call volume has tripled, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council.
Swan, a 37-year veteran of volunteer firefighting, remembers a time when career fire departments took only the cream of the crop, with big city departments having hundreds of applicants to sort through at any given time.
Recruits have since been asked to pass intensive health screenings and undergo long, complex training regimes both upon initiation and on an ongoing basis in maintenance of certifications in life-saving skill sets.
OSHA requirements designed to protect the health of first responders from fumes and structural hazards borne of changes in construction technique have packed hours onto already strained schedules for volunteers who are often juggling work and families.
The job hasn鈥檛 changed in quantity alone. It鈥檚 also taken on new dimensions as the public鈥檚 expectations of emergency responders have changed.
First responders equipped to deal with mental health crises are in unrelenting demand; situations involving drug use benefit immensely from first responders with de-escalation skills plus life-saving naloxone and 鈥渓ift requests鈥� from elderly callers who have fallen and can鈥檛 get up.
The public and federal regulators alike have begun to treat volunteer and career municipal departments as if they are one and the same, Swan said.
鈥淲hen I started 37 years ago, we volunteers were running 60 to 80 calls a year,鈥� Swan said. 鈥淣o problem. We didn鈥檛 need the training we do today. Now we鈥檙e running almost 1,000 calls a year. Today, we鈥檙e no different than a career department down in Moline. Our firefighters are trained the same. 鈥� When the call goes into dispatch, if it鈥檚 not law enforcement related, it goes right to the fire service.鈥�
Doing more with less
With the increase in demand, Swan said Illinois fire departments have seen little increase in funding or applicants.
Swan said even well-funded municipal fire departments, which draw their funding from city budgets, typically pick from about a dozen interested candidates, sometimes lowering their standards to admit even that many to the process.
The average volunteer fire department, whose only mode of compensation is typically a meager fuel stipend, has completely fallen by the wayside.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 turn people down. Most of the time, they turn us down,鈥� Swan said. 鈥淵ou just don鈥檛 hand somebody a coat and say, 鈥楯ump on a truck.鈥� I mean, there鈥檚 a lot of training that goes in before that happens. When you start telling them the roles and responsibilities of being a firefighter and they find out how many calls we have and how much time it takes, they don鈥檛 even take the application.鈥�
The vast majority of volunteers are 40 or above, nationwide, serving older populations than ever before.
Swan says many members of the public don鈥檛 understand why volunteer fire departments can鈥檛 go on with the status quo.
Swan and Colona Fire Protection District Trustee Victor Dzekunskas are the only full-time members of the Colona Fire Department, by virtue of their retirement. They are 73 and 79 years old, respectively.
Many other fire-protection district chiefs in the area work full-time, along with leading their departments, Swan said.
Colona has 17 non-retiree volunteers. However, they are not always available for weekday emergencies. The majority of the Colona Fire Department will only ever be able to respond to weekend or nighttime calls.
The simple reason is that to miss daytime work is to go unpaid. A structure fire can take five to six hours to fully extinguish if not controlled well in the first few minutes, Swan said. In exchange, the Colona Fire Department can offer only about $7 in stipend money to cover fuel expenses.
The third volunteer present for Swan鈥檚 interview during the work day last week was only at the station because he鈥檇 taken paid time off that Thursday to pick up dishwasher parts.
鈥淯sually you鈥檇 just find me and this guy here,鈥� Swan gestured at Dzekunskas.
A structure fire typically requires eight people, minimum, to ensure reignition won鈥檛 occur and perform rescue operations.
A small community is lucky to have two or three volunteers free during the day.
Mutual-aid agreements between volunteer fire departments are common, but a response from one town over is not only likely to run into similar personnel issues, it also takes longer for firefighters to get there, sometimes stretching long enough for 鈥渢he whole building to burn down.鈥�
鈥淎 lot of these firefighters are in their 60s,鈥� Swan said. 鈥淭hey have no business going into a burning house 鈥� let alone trying to do so in stressful situations. But they do. We do. Communities need to understand; we don鈥檛 have a lot of young people available. Not just Colona. We鈥檙e talking nationwide.鈥�
Swan and Dzekunskas don鈥檛 usually enter burning buildings, instead managing other parts of a fire response. They pull hoses and run machinery.
鈥�(Dzekunskas) can still put an Air-Pak on,鈥� Swan said. 鈥淚 can too. But do we have any business doing it? No. We should not have to do it. But we will.鈥�
Doing more with less: EMS and finances
The largest increase in the responsibilities of a volunteer firefighter has taken place with the end of local ambulance services.
In Illinois, fire-protection districts levy property taxes for volunteer fire departments, but only with several strict conditions imposed by the state.
Departments can levy a maximum of 30 cents per $100 of equalized assessed property value to support firefighting services, 30 cents per $100 of EAV to support ambulance services and 10 cents per $100 of EAV to support rescue services.
The premise of volunteer firefighters doing EMS care regularly only emerged when it became too difficult for the ambulance tax to support local operations in small towns like Colona because of the shortage of volunteers, plus the fact that highly skilled unpaid workers often end up leaving to join career departments nearby.
Without volunteers, fire and EMS services are very difficult for small towns to maintain.
鈥淔ire burns the same in a small town as it does in a larger municipality 鈥� a single-family home burns the same way no matter where you are,鈥� Swan said.
It takes the same resources to fight it too.
The need for good response times dictates that each region must have its own service. Each minute of response time can make fire and emergency medical issues exponentially worse.
At least a fire engine and four firefighters are needed to have a reasonable chance of fighting a fire, no matter where it is. Similarly, no matter a community鈥檚 total taxable property value, medical emergencies still demand a professional EMS team and fully supplied ambulance.
The cumulative EAV of the Colona Fire Protection District is $108,466,497, yielding $325,399 for ambulance or fire services, assuming residents are taxed at the maximum rate of 30 cents.
But, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council鈥檚 website, the same 30-cent rate would yield just $66,672 when applied to the $22,224,296 EAV of the nearby Galva Fire Protection District.
Nearby municipalities that do not rely on fire-protection districts, such as Moline, have no maximum on what they can levy for their fire departments and have much higher EAVs in denser areas. They鈥檙e also free to supplement personnel wages and benefits with various taxes on local commerce. Yet, fire and police departments still constitute a large proportion of most municipality budgets.
Colona has never had a dedicated government ambulance service. The community contracts with MercyOne Genesis Silvis Medical Center, which sends ambulances to the neighboring city as needed.
Contracting with distant ambulance services can lead to longer response times and can strain levies that were never meant to pay wages 鈥� just ambulance equipment for volunteers to operate.
The result is firefighters doing CPR and other lifesaving treatments while the ambulance arrives. A local response within one or two minutes can prevent a flatline and greatly improve a patient鈥檚 odds. Swan said chances of a flatline greatly increased after four to six minutes without any lifesaving measures.
This is the service the 10 cent rescue tax is designed to pay for. However, Colona residents have voted down two referendums on the tax, as have residents in districts across the country.
Although they may not know it, every Colona resident relies on a less-than-seven-minute response time from the district鈥檚 volunteers, Swan said. During the day, that mean responses chiefly from Swan and Dzekunskas.
The two retirees are ill-equipped to handle fires and EMS calls, especially if there are multiple calls at once.
In the event of multiple calls at once, many districts don鈥檛 have more than one ambulance contracted, further protracting response times, Swan said.
Another problem comes with the second component of an aging America: residents.
鈥淚n the last couple of years our calls went up 20% just on the EMS side,鈥� Swan said. 鈥漀ow, 80% of most (departments鈥�) calls are EMS. (800 a year and going up.) We鈥檙e getting lift assists, non-emergency mental health calls 鈥� all sorts of calls. That used to be just fire 20 or 30 years ago. Now people pick up the phone for every type of emergency situation, anything they want 鈥� they call the fire service. And we鈥檙e proud to do that if we can. But we are getting burnt out.鈥�
The entire Colona operation, EMS and fire, is funded only by a 30 cent fire tax.
A referendum to add the 10 cent tax will be on Colona Fire Protection District ballots for April 1 municipal elections. Swan believes it will be sufficient to hire two paid day-shift staff.
If it fails, EMS is a service Swan is not sure the district will be able to offer much longer.
鈥淭he only other thing we can do at this point is just don鈥檛 go on EMS rescue calls,鈥� Swan said. 鈥淛ust don鈥檛. But then the public goes 鈥極h, my god. I called 911 and the fire department didn鈥檛 come.鈥� We don鈥檛 have to go to those. We鈥檝e taken on this burden to the point that it鈥檚 breaking our back.鈥�
漏 2025 Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus, Ill.
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