Dire firefighter shortages in this SC county put lives in peril. ‘We do the best we can.’
Lives could be in danger in Georgetown County, where firehouses face chronic manpower shortages.
In some cases, fire engines continually go out with only one firefighter on the truck, while national standards call for a minimum of four. That can leave one person handling the duties of an entire crew for minutes — in situations where minutes matter — until other trucks can arrive.
A lot can happen in the first few minutes of a fire, according to Doug Stern, spokesman for the International Association of Fire Fighters.
“One firefighter by himself is not going to be enough,” said Stern, noting the essential tasks required after arriving on scene, from locating a water source to dragging a hose. “One person alone cannot accomplish those tasks before a fire gets out of hand.”
Georgetown County Fire/EMS currently has 11 vacancies in the fire department, but that would still leave it woefully short-handed. It would take more than 60 people for the combination professional-volunteer department to be fully staffed.
And it would take filling those vacancies, plus adding over 40 more firefighters to have at least two people on a truck for every call. In the first five months of this year, the department responded to 3,175 total calls, including some ambulance-only.
Georgetown County Fire Chief Mack Reed acknowledged the department is in dire need of manpower.
“We have one on a fire truck, still 2 on an ambulance,” Reed said of the combination fire-ambulance department. “That’s the way it’s always been.”
The 30-year veteran said when he started most stations operated from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with one person at a station, but there are now a handful of stations that are 24/7. Eight of the department’s 15 stations have just one person working per shift.
Having one person at a station hampers recruiting efforts as well, he said. The question that often comes up early in the first phone interview: “Are you comfortable alone on an apparatus?”
One person, one station
Nearly half of Georgetown County’s stations are routinely staffed with a lone firefighter during the traditional working hours. During nights and weekends, the burden shifts to volunteers or off-the-clock career firefighters.
The national training program Rapid Intervention Team teaches that on the scene of a structure fire, if there are two firefighters inside a building, there must be two others outside to provide relief or rescue for the firefighters working inside.
“Two in, two out” is impossible when only one firefighter is arriving on scene, firefighters noted.
When there is a lone firefighter, he or she must do all tasks, including a 360-degree check of the structure, dragging the hose and hooking a hose to the nearest fire hydrant or to the truck. The lone firefighter can’t go inside to rescue a possible victim.
“It gets a little scary,” said Derriel Baxley, a firefighter/EMT who works weekdays at the Dunbar area station. “We can’t go in with just one person there. It feels like an eternity when you get there and that’s going on.
“You’re there by yourself. One person can only do so much.”
It worries supervisors when stations are not fully staffed and a major structure fire call comes in, especially on weekends.
“Are you only gonna have four engines and two ambulances respond?” asked Battalion Chief Deborah Johnson. “It’s a big impact on you late at night.
“I just think sometimes the assurance of other people with you, not (being) by yourself, goes a long way,” she said. “Multiple people doing jobs at one time versus one person doing multiple jobs.”
The National Fire Protection Association recommends four firefighters be staffed on a truck for all calls, and they should be on scene within four minutes.
That’s not happening.
For the first five months of 2020, from Jan. 1 to June 1, the average response time for Georgetown County Fire/EMS was 9 minutes, 4 seconds, according to Reed. By the eight-minute mark after a call goes out, there should be a total of 17 firefighters on scene, according to national standards.
Fighting a fire solo
Stern, the international association spokesman, said a solution to the lack of manpower is to make hiring more firefighters a priority.
But that takes money. The department’s budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year is just over $3.6 million.
For paid firefighters, starting salaries in the department range between $32,000 and $38,000, depending on whether the job title is simply a firefighter or a firefighter/EMT or paramedic. Comparably, Midway Fire Rescue offers the same starting range, while Horry County Fire Rescue offers slightly more for starting pay.
Georgetown County Council Chairman John Thomas did not return phone calls or emails for comment on whether the county has any plans to increase the department’s budget and add more firefighters.
While newly trained firefighters cost less, it’s difficult to hire just inexperienced personnel because they do not yet have the skills necessary to be at a station alone, which in Georgetown County is likely.
“We have lost a lot of young people ... they do not want to be on a solo engine,” said Jeff Gore, Georgetown County paramedic, who is in his second stint with the department. He said the amount of volunteers in the department is “just not what it used to be.”
Additionally, he said, the department needs at least two or three more ambulances.
“We run out of ambulances all the time,” Gore said. There have been calls that have taken him 30 minutes to respond to because there were no other nearby ambulances, he said.
As of mid-June, the county had five ambulances. Averaging about 8,000 calls per year, Gore said the department should have at least one ambulance per 1,000 calls.
County Administrator Angela Christian, who has been on the job about three months, said she has developed a long-term plan for recruitment and retention within the fire department. Christian acknowledges there have been shortages in staff, and has plans to be more aggressive in making the county a destination spot for firefighters.
“We certainly want to be the employer of choice, that we are not just a training ground,” she said.
Funding is the most critical aspect to the issue, Christian said, but the county is going to focus on filling current vacancies before adding more positions.
Recruitment a challenge
Georgetown County Fire and EMS merged more than a decade ago, and the move has made it easier and more organized for the fire side of the department, Reed said.
Twenty-two people are spread between the 15 stations in a given shift, with one battalion chief per shift. There are three 24 hour shifts that rotate.
To compare Georgetown to other areas, Midway Fire Rescue has 22 on shift at its three stations. Horry County Fire Rescue has a minimum of 95 people on per shift, with four battalion chiefs. HCFR has a minimum of two people per shift at several stations, and other stations staffed with up to seven people, according to department data provided under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Georgetown County currently has between 60-70 volunteers but only a handful of volunteer firefighters who are actually certified to fight fires, Not all volunteers are trained to respond to calls on their own. At one point, the department had close to 150 volunteers, Reed said.
The county has a population of just over 60,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Georgetown fire and EMS’s jurisdiction encompasses areas south of the two bridges leading into Georgetown, while Midway Fire Rescue responds to calls in the Litchfield, Pawleys Island and Debordieu areas.
Medical calls are the majority of calls for Georgetown County firefighters, officials say.
Reed blames the lack of manpower on funding and retention difficulties. Turnover is a problem that plagues his department, but he said this is not uncommon.
Insufficient funds, Reed said, are due to millage rate increase limitations, or a millage cap that does not allow government bodies to rapidly raise taxes.
Assistant Chief Tony Hucks said even if the department was to get grants to hire more firefighters, it would still face challenges recruiting people. Fire chiefs say many new firefighters only want to work alongside veterans.
Even when they hire firefighters, Hucks said, it seems like the department is a training ground for young crew members. “Young guys coming in, working a couple of years, then going back to where they came from so now they have experience and can get a job,” Hucks said.
Reed added, “We’ve invested our time, training and money in this person for two or three years. Now we have to start all over again.”
Firefighter/EMT Henry Barnes said he relies on his training when he’s the only one to arrive first on scene.
“It’s muscle memory,” Barnes said. “Being on the truck by yourself, you do everything to make sure the public is safe. Could be 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes until somebody (another firefighter) comes up. There are times you’re gonna be there by yourself. Once you get there, you make sure everybody’s out, do what you can until you start getting back up.
“If we had more people, it would help us do our job a lot better. The more people you have, the quicker you can get the job done. We do the best we can with what we have.”
For now, Reed said, the department hasn’t found itself in too big of a dilemma. It makes adjustments or calls another department for aid during big emergencies.
“We back one another up all the time,” Reed said.
Mandatory overtime is common throughout the department’s shifts as getting volunteers to work extra shifts can be sporadic.
“Without as much overtime, you would probably increase the morale,” Gore said.
Gore stays with the department because of the people with whom he works and the potential he believes the department could have.
“I feel like we are on the cusp of not being a stepping stone department,” Gore said.
What does the future hold?
Construction will soon wrap up on nine substations throughout the county, which are intended to make the county’s ISO ratings better. Insurance Services Office ratings are on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best.
According to Value Penguin.com, an ISO rating determines how well your local fire department can protect your community and home. Insurance companies use the score to help set home insurance rates.
The best rating in the county is a Class 4-4X in the less-rural areas, but other places have even higher ratings due to fire hydrant placement being more scarce.
Though the department struggles with manpower, its firefighters still push through and take calls.
Firefighters work with what they have and try to make the best of it, Reed said. Employees are dedicated, though it is a strain at times to have one person on a truck and one at a station.
“I don’t want to say I’ve gotten used to it, but I know it is what it is,” Reed said. “I count a lot on my counterparts.”
This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Dire firefighter shortages in this SC county put lives in peril. ‘We do the best we can.’."
