NVFC’s Cost Savings Calculator helps volunteer departments make the case for community funding
Volunteer firefighters save cities across the United States billions of dollars each year. But it’s often difficult for an individual volunteer fire department (VFD) to quantify the economic value of its service.
Now, VFDs have access to the Cost Savings Calculator, a tool developed by the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) to help volunteer and combination fire departments estimate their worth. Fire departments enter department-specific information such as area and population protected, number of residences, current operating expenses and number of volunteers. The program then calculates how much the city saves by using volunteer firefighters—something many county officials and community leaders may not truly understand.
Armed with this information, fire departments have greater leverage to secure funding for new apparatus, training programs and other resources. The El Campo (Texas) Volunteer Fire Department recently used the calculator to convince its city council to fund operations at a new fire training facility.
The Cost Savings Calculator is available to all fire departments for free download at the NVFC’s Web site, www.nvfc.org.