By Donna Weaver
The Press of Atlantic City
SURF CITY, N.J. — Dwindling volunteer numbers in five fire departments on Long Beach Island may force the organizations to merge or go to a paid-services system, local fire chiefs say.
Surf City Fire Chief Brian Stasik said the loss of volunteers in the departments is plaguing the entire island’s volunteer firefighter community.
“It’s the case up and down the island because young people can’t afford to live on LBI and they’re moving onto the mainland. If you’re brought up on the island, you move off and go to college. And a lot of people are just buying properties on the mainland,” Stasik said.
Long Beach Island, a resort community, is made up of vacation homes, many worth millions of dollars. There is a small year-round and winter rental community, but housing costs have priced many volunteer firefighters off of the island.
Stasik said he has 26 firefighters in his department, but the majority of the members are summer members.
“And our hardest time of the year is the winter time when there’s nobody here from the department,” he said.
With diminished staff, the department continues to respond to every emergency call they receive and keep their trucks on the road, he said.
“Right now we’re using the LOSAP program to encourage people to join. We’re asking for any new members who happen to live in town,” he said.
LOSAP, the emergency services volunteer Length of Service Award Program, is a system established through the state Department of Community Affairs to provide tax-deferred income to active volunteer service organization members.
“We’re looking at ways of doing it to have more members, maybe a paid firefighter on call. But there’s not really much we can do at this point. We’re probably going to be merging services. And in the long run, we may have paid services,” Stasik said.
The five departments on Long Beach Island include the Surf City, High Point, Beach Haven, Ship Bottom and Barnegat Light volunteer fire companies. The departments stretch across the island’s 18 miles.
Possiblitiy of paid departments
Surf City Mayor Leonard T. Connors said he believes some individuals on Long Beach Island would like to have a paid fire department, and he believes the island’s fire departments will have to become a paid service.
He said the town has always tried to help the fire department, including paying for its equipment and the public voting to give the firefighters a pension.
“We will always have fire protection here, if the taxpayers have to pay for it or if it comes through the volunteers. The decision won’t be made by the fire chiefs as to whether or not we have a paid fire department. It will be up to the voters,” he said.
In March 2009, in neighboring Atlantic County, officials reviewed a study that called for merging all five of Hamilton Township’s volunteer fire companies into one department to streamline department operations.
The five volunteer fire departments, which include Cologne, Laureldale, Mizpah, Mays Landing and Weymouth, would remain detached organizations, but only one fire chief would supervise operations. No such study has been done or is planned to be completed on Long Beach Island, several fire chiefs have said.
Beach Haven Fire Chief Matthew Letts’ fire company is the oldest in Ocean County, but he said he knows merging departments across the island is coming soon. For now, the Beach Haven fire company is holding its own, Letts said.
The Beach Haven Volunteer Fire Company has about 70 members, including life members and active firefighters. Letts said the company will bring on two more members next month.
He said the company has 40 sets of gear hanging on the station’s wall. An average call brings in between 10 and 12 firefighters. If the call is a structure fire, at least 25 members respond, he said. The company responds as far as Barnegat Light and covers Long Beach Township from 85th Street to the township’s Holgate section.
Letts echoed Stasik’s concern that the island is losing volunteer firefighters because the cost of living in each of the six municipalities has skyrocketed.
“We’re not as bad off as the rest of the departments on the island are. We have a lot of young guys who live in town. But it’s hard because the price of housing is crazy. And luckily, many of the young guys live with their parents or they’d be off the island,” Letts said.
He said he foresees a merger happening across the island between the fire companies, but Beach Haven may have a little more time before that occurs.
“We don’t have a plan per say of what we’re going to do when it happens, but in the future we’ll end up merging or having paid crews,” he said.
Membership down
Barnegat Light Fire Chief Keith Anderson said his department is seeing “big time” volunteer problems in the town. Money is not an issue within the fire department, instead it’s all about membership, Anderson said.
“We were just talking about this the other day. We were trying to guess at what the average age of our active firefighters are and the average age is over 50. It’s hard to get younger members,” Anderson said.
He said on the books, the department has 22 active members. Usually, about eight members respond to daytime fire calls and evening calls bring 15 to 20 members.
Because of the costs, Anderson said, he wasn’t sure that paid services would happen anytime soon on Long Beach Island. Discussion of department mergers may rather involve departments who are located close together being dispatched simultaneously on each call.
“As far as mergers, I doubt that would happen because you’re not going to gain manpower by doing that. I don’t know what would be gained by that. If anything I could see a merger with Surf City and Ship Bottom because they’re back to back and they respond to every call together already,” he said.
Harvey Cedars Mayor Jonathan Oldham said every volunteer fire company is having a hard time keeping members. As they recruit members, the High Point Volunteer Fire Company in Harvey Cedars works on creating a culture people want to be a part of, Oldham said.
“Anyone who is buying a $2 or $3 million home is not going to volunteer at a fire company. We’ve been fortunate to pick up a number of young kids because their parents still live in town,” said Oldham who is a life member of the High Point Volunteer Fire Company.
He said several of the borough’s public works employees are also volunteer firefighters and the borough permits them to respond to fire calls during the work day.
“At some point it will all go paid, and it will be a sad day in Harvey Cedars and the rest of the island and very expensive for the taxpayers,” he said.
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