Middletown’s newly appointed fire chief, Robert Brady, said his top priority is strengthening the department’s volunteer firefighter force through recruitment and retention.
“I want to see this fire department thrive,” Mr. Brady told The Epoch Times shortly after being sworn in by Mayor Joseph DeStefano at City Hall on Jan. 3.
“If the volunteers stop showing up, what do we have to do? We have to become a fully paid fire department like the City of Newburgh, and that would be very expensive.”
The City of Middletown Fire Department has long deployed a hybrid force of paid career firefighters and volunteers, a unique model that guarantees quick emergency responses while saving taxpayer money.
The rest of the cities in Orange County have either a fully volunteer or a fully paid firefighter force.
Last year, the city’s volunteer force and 23 or so career firefighters answered more than 1,000 calls together, making it the third-busiest fire department in the county, according to Mr. Brady.
However, as part of a larger trend that plagues fire departments nationwide, the city’s volunteer firefighter force has dwindled over the past decades to about 35 active members today.
When Mr. Brady first came into the fire department 34 years ago, eight out of 10 volunteers would stay, but today, only two or three out of 10 stay, he said.
Increasingly complex state-mandated training, some for good reasons, means it’s more difficult and time-consuming to be a volunteer firefighter than ever, and changing family dynamics make it harder for people to commit to volunteering as much as previous generations.
Despite these, he said the department benefits from a core dedicated force bound together by a shared love for fire service, the camaraderie of a firehouse, and understanding family members.
His two sons, soon to turn 18 and 20, followed in his footsteps to become volunteer firefighters.
“You have to love it,” Mr. Brady said. “Because we are waking up in the middle of the night, in snowstorms, and in rainstorms, and often we are doing this for strangers.
“And it is not my gig; it is a family gig,” he added, referring to the importance of a supportive family.
The state has attempted to reverse the declining trend by offering more monetary incentives to volunteer firefighters, including training bonuses and property tax exemptions, Mr. Brady said, and he hopes to get more people engaged through more flexible and diverse training.
“Whether it is the fire side of it or the rescue side of it, and we are starting to get more into a lot of the EMS [emergency medical services] side of it, so there is a place for everyone,” he said. “We got to offer different kinds of training to get people involved.”
Good training also helps reinforce the values of fire service in firefighters.
“What I try to preach to my guys is empathy and compassion,” he said. “When we do our job, it is people’s worst day of their life—they are losing everything.”
“If we save one wedding pitcher, that wedding pitcher might be the only thing left to them, and that is a pitcher full of memories,” he said.
“You can replace clothes—you can replace anything—but you can’t replace lives, and you can’t replace memories.”
His goal is to double the volunteer force over his three-year term.
The city can surely use more EMS-trained volunteers, according to Mr. DeStefano, as it looks to potentially shift part of EMS services to the fire department in the coming years.
“We will be working closely with the fire department to develop a path forward within a reasonable budget,” Mr. DeStefano told The Epoch Times, adding that Mr. Brady was welcome to reach out to the City Hall for help as he navigated the new role as fire chief.
At the same Jan. 3 ceremony, Randy MacLean was sworn in as first assistant fire chief, Nick Elia as the second assistant chief, and Drew Manis as the third assistant chief.
Bill Kelder and Andrew Green were sworn in as department treasurer and secretary, respectively.
