In these times of hard employment searches, Jim Henderson just snared the job of his dreams — and he even had a second offer waiting.

        He started work this month as a full-time firefighter/paramedic recruit in Anderson Township, after juggling part-time jobs at three Tristate fire departments for the past seven years.

Anderson Township firefighter/paramedic Jim Henderson trains last week at a facility in Colerain Township. (Glenn Hartong photos) | ZOOM |

        “It's a good time to be a firefighter,” the 25-year-old Fairfax man says. “The opportunity is there.”

        Faced with booming suburban development, conflicting time demands on part-time firefighters and aging populations more likely to need emergency service, fire departments in Greater Cincinnati are creating career firefighting positions at a flash-fire rate.

        At least 297 new full-time positions will either be established or upgraded from part-time slots in Hamilton and Warren counties between 2001 and 2003, recent research at the National Fire Academy shows.

        That's a 22 percent increase in three years and about double what researchers expected when they started the study.

        Competition among departments is so fierce that municipalities are fighting for workers, who aren't reluctant to switch jobs. Pay has risen at some departments to $45,000 a year. In Forest Park, recruitment starts in high school — where kids are encouraged early to consider firefighting careers.

        Taxpayers may soon feel the impact. As municipalities enlarge and upgrade their firefighting staffs, they're also buying new equipment and building more firehouses.

        “The most effective firefighting force is a full-time firefighting force,” says George Burke of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which represents 252,000 firefighters nationwide.

        In Sharonville, for example, voters last year approved an increase in the city's earnings tax — levied on those who live and/or work there — to convert their primarily volunteer fire department to a full-time operation.

        The increase is expected to generate $5.9 million a year, all of which will go to the fire department in a community that grew 5 percent from 1990 to 2000.

        In part, the money will pay for 27 new firefighters this year at some of the highest starting salaries around: $42,000 to $45,000 a year.

        “We don't have people coming into the department as volunteers,” Sharonville Fire Chief Dale Duermit says. “It's a whole different situation today.”

A "stop gap' measure

        The push to hire full-timers is reflected nationwide and began well before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks turned firefighters into instant national heroes.

Firefighters from Woodlawn, Lockland, Glendale and Wyoming train in late May. | ZOOM |

        Part-timers and volunteers just aren't as efficient as communities grow and demographics change, Mr. Burke says. Their time is more difficult to manage because they're juggling several jobs. And their typical 12-hour shifts don't neatly jibe with full-timers' 24 hours on and 48 hours off.

        “A (fire) company on its shift becomes a pretty well-honed machine,” Mr. Burke says. “Mixing and matching firefighters on a daily basis into these shifts is not necessarily efficient production. Part-timers are at best a stop-gap measure.”

        The growth in full-timers is reflected in national union membership, which has swelled from 175,000 members 10 years ago to 252,000 today — up 44 percent. The union represents only full-time firefighters.

        Nathan Bromen, a Deerfield Township deputy chief, researched Tristate fire department trends in 2001 as part of an executive course for the National Fire Academy.

        That research shows that at least 86 part-time jobs will be upgraded to full-time positions in Hamilton and Warren counties in 2001-2003. At the same time, at least 211 new full-time positions are expected to be created, including 81 in the Cincinnati Fire Department.

        “It was kind of eye-opening,” Deputy Chief Bromen says.

        The numbers are sure to be much higher. His research was based on responses from only 41 of 56 fire departments in the two counties, and departments regionwide report similar trends, too.

        Contrast that three-year growth with the fact that it took Hamilton County 11 years to add 342 full-time firefighter jobs for a total of 1,400 today.

Colerain's situation

        The Colerain Township Fire Department is a good example of what's happening in the region. It has added six career firefighters in each of the past three years and plans to hire 12 more over the next three years.

        That will bring total full-timers to 60 by 2005 — more than quadruple the number of 20 years ago.

Jim Henderson cools off after leaving a live burn at the Colerain Township fire training facility. | ZOOM |

        “We've reached the conclusion that we don't have a choice,” Fire Chief Bruce Smith says. “It has nothing to do with the capability levels of people. It has everything to do with the sheer numbers that we have to have.”

        The department responded to 2,220 fire runs and 5,344 emergency medical service calls last year in the growing community. It uses 120 part-time firefighters in addition to the full-timers.

        Home to the massive Rumpke landfill, Colerain is the largest township in Ohio. About 61,000 people live in the 45-square-mile township that covers part of northwest Hamilton County.

        The fire department operates four stations and is planning a fifth to serve the northwest section of the township.

        With a fire levy and bonds, township officials have anticipated the growing need.

        “At the present time everything's pretty well budgeted,” Township Trustee Keith Corman says. “Overall, I think expenses are going to go up” — especially since Sept. 11, as departments consider additional equipment and training to cope with potential disasters.

        “Most of the communities are either still growing or their fire department is still trying to catch up with growth that has happened over the last 15 to 20 years,” Chief Smith says.
       

Precious experience

        The blitz makes people like Mr. Henderson a hot commodity.

        Mr. Henderson grew up in a firefighting household. Both his parents worked for the Fairfax Fire Department, and, early on, he knew that's what he wanted to do, too.

        He earned an associate degree in fire and emergency services from Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, and has worked part-time at Fairfax-Madison Place, Colerain and Springfield township fire departments. That gave him precious experience coveted by fire agencies.

        Now, the married father of a 17-month-old son says, “I want to do this for a living.”

        His starting salary at Anderson: $33,689.

        Starting salaries like Sharonville's have drawn attention across the Tristate.

        “We want to be competitive with other fire departments,” Springfield Township Fire Chief Robert Leininger says.” I thought we were in the ballpark. Sharonville comes along, and they start the hiring process at almost $7,000 more than what the paramedics I just hired are making. That tells me right there I've got a problem.”

        Sharonville didn't hesitate to steal experienced firefighters from across the area for its newest 18-member recruit class.

        That class includes former full-time firefighters from the Sandusky, Madeira/Indian Hill and Sycamore Township departments, plus former part-timers who had worked in Blue Ash, Montgomery, Springdale, Deerfield Township and Lebanon.

        While average firefighter pay numbers are not available for the Tristate, Cincinnati's pay scale is a good example of the career rewards.

        Fire recruits in the city are paid an annual salary of $28,138 during their 20 weeks of training, then are bumped to $37,142 at graduation. After one year, their salary rises again to $42,162.

        Springfield Township Trustee Gwen McFarlin says rising salaries are a concern for local governments. When the township advertised for full-time firefighters in December, Chief Leininger anticipated receiving 100 applications. He got fewer than 25.

        “At some point there should be some type of standard put in place so that we don't outprice ourselves,” Ms. McFarlin says.

        Full-time firefighters change jobs for a variety of reasons, including higher pay, opportunity for advancement and, in some cases, to work at busier departments.

        Firefighter pensions, vacations, seniority and sick days transfer from job to job, by law.

        So, “you don't lose much by moving,” Chief Stephen Ashbrock of the Madeira & Indian Hill Joint Fire District says. “We truly have entered a competitive market in the fire service. And we're not used to that.”

        In suburban Hamilton County, career firefighters typically make four to 12 runs a day.

        And therein lies the allure to the job.

        “I just fell in love with it,” says Pat Gunn, a 40-year-old firefighter/paramedic in Green Township. “Every single day is something different.

        “I like the runs where you can actually perform some maneuvers, or give some medication and improve on that (patient's) well-being,” says Mr. Gunn, who abandoned a carpentry career to fight fires years ago.

        Plus, he adds, “I really love the adrenaline rush of going in and fighting a fire.”

Declining breed

        About 1,000 of Ohio's 1,300 fire departments rely on some sort of volunteer staffing, says Bill Teets, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Commerce, which includes the Ohio Fire Marshal's office.

        But those numbers are falling. A 1998 study by Chief Ashbrock shows that there were about 1,000 volunteers on Hamilton County fire departments in 1985, a number that had dropped to 550 by 1998.

        During the same period the number of part-time positions grew from 269 to 715. Career positions likewise increased, from about 1,065 to 1,253.

        Volunteer staffing didn't work for the Hebron Fire Protection District, which handles the northwest section of Boone County, Ky. It began converting its volunteer department into a full-time organization in 1993 — in the midst of a population boom that resulted in an 80 percent increase in residents from 1990 to 2000.

        By the mid-'90s, the department was mixing part-timers with full-time and volunteer crews.

        Still, “Weekends were a problem,” recalls Hebron Fire District Chief Dale Harshbarger. “Those (shifts) became very difficult to fill.”

        Fire chiefs say competition is forcing them to be more creative to attract and retain firefighters and emergency medical service workers.

        Future firefighters must be identified while still in high school or college. Firefighter Explorer posts — operations that give high school students a taste of firefighting — could also become more prevalent, the chiefs say.

        “You've got to provide the service,” Gregory Ballman, Golf Manor fire chief, says.

        “I've got to put people in this station. One way or another, come hell or high water, when that alarm goes off, somebody has got to show up.”
       

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