A Strategy for Finding New Recruits

Finding new recruits is a serious problem for many dwindling volunteer fire companies, but one Pennsylvania community has taken an innovative twist on getting high school students interested in becoming (and remaining) junior firefighters.

The program at North Schuylkill Junior Senior High School, in Ashland, Pennsylvania, was born out of a tragedy: On Mother’s Day 2013, a nearby residence fire claimed the lives of six people, including four children. When Ryan McGurl, a science teacher at North Schuylkill, learned that there were no working smoke alarms in the house, he decided to enlist the help of his school’s students in helping to ensure that preventable tragedies like this would not happen again.

Fundraising for Fire Safety

McGurl, who is a member of American Hose Company in Ashland but not an active firefighter, began asking students to raise funds for fire safety. “We started to buy smoke alarms and batteries for disadvantaged kids-we drew a list from anybody on the free lunch program,” he recalls. Students raised money by selling beef jerky in the school, with a program already set up by manufacturer Jack Link.

“We raised several hundred dollars last year; that, and some donations from Women’s Auxiliary groups in the area, allowed us to hand out 150 smoke alarms and even more batteries,” says McGurl.

The fundraising students, now dubbed Spartan Fire & Rescue after the school’s sports teams, are in seventh-12th grade and include boys and girls-some who were already junior firefighters.

“Last year, we had 10 or 12 junior firefighters in our school already,” says McGurl. “They help with fire drills and things like that. When that group started fundraising, that number went up to 30. And when that happened, I talked to the local fire companies about recruiting them.”

An Element of Competition

McGurl, who coaches football at North Schuylkill, knew that a competition would interest students. So he worked with multiple local fire companies to plan a day that would test young participants’ skills and pique the interest of others.

On a Saturday in April, the high school and local fire companies held a junior firefighter challenge and invited all high school students. “Eight or 10 companies brought their equipment and apparatus; some brought applications and set up a stand [to talk to the kids about joining],” says McGurl. “There is a dire need here for new recruits-it’s all volunteer departments around here.”

Representatives from the fire companies had designed a firefighter challenge for the students. Out of the Spartan Fire & Rescue group, 15 members qualified to participate-each was required to be part of a fire company to compete, and many had already started their training.

“The participants basically took a mini-Firefighter 1 exam and tried their hands at some timed skills challenges,” recalls McGurl. Challenges included setting up ladders against a building, putting on turnout gear, running an obstacle course, filling a barrel with water using five-gallon buckets, hooking up hose from a fire hydrant to two fire trucks, and crawling into a darkened locker room to find a person on a floor as well as identify the type of fire there and use the proper fire extinguisher.

The student participants loved it, the companies enjoyed it, and the competition drew a lot of local media coverage. McGurl plans to leverage that success, this school year and in the future, for more fundraising and more recruiting.

“I hope to get neighboring schools to participate,” he says. “I’d love to see some inter-school competition and have it become like a sport. Right now I know of two schools that might be interested.”

Finding Recruits

McGurl is currently working on ways to communicate with other school districts and looking for funding to help with efforts. He also plans to ramp up this year’s fire safety fundraising efforts at North Schuylkill-as soon as football season is over.

Spartan Fire & Rescue is reportedly eager to return to raising money. “We’ll do it again this spring and likely distribute the smoke alarms in May,” says McGurl. “Our ultimate goal is to get fire safety equipment to everyone in the district.” And in reaching for that goal, the student group may ultimately fill the gap in the area’s fire companies.