Fire departments across Kansas challenged to attract young volunteers

MULVANE, Kan. (KSNW) — Fire departments across Kansas are feeling the heat. They are dealing with the challenges of attracting volunteers to fill their staff.

Jason Mundell has been a volunteer with the Mulvane Fire Department for roughly 30 years. He said volunteerism has changed over his time giving back to the community. He said they’re struggling to recruit younger people to lend a hand.

Mundell has been with the Wichita Fire Department for more than 25 years but gives time to volunteer in his hometown, Mulvane, on his off days.

He said it’s difficult for the small community to recruit young volunteers.

“Seventy percent of our members are over 40 years old, so trying to get those younger kids, younger adults to show an interest in volunteering their time, is going to be the biggest challenge,” said Mundell.

He said most young professionals who live in Mulvane do not work there, and as a bedroom community to Wichita, people are often unavailable to volunteer there.

“Most jobs are out of town, so they are gone during the daytime, so it’s hard to get that daytime response from people because they’re out of town working,” said Mundell.

Mulvane Director of Public Safety Gordon Fell said that, with the current cost of living, people are less inclined to volunteer their hours.

“A lot of different family priorities don’t really have that time to dedicate because it is a lot of time that our members put into the fire service,” said Fell.

Steve Hirsch, treasurer of the Kansas State Firefighters Association, said the KSFFA was awarded $1.3 million in grant funds last year to help recruit and retain volunteer firefighters.

“We’re just kind of getting started now. That’s going to include some leadership training, it’s going to include training on recruitment and retention, it’s going to include some gear for people, physicals,” said Hirsch.

It will be rolled out over four years. Hirsch hopes it will improve stations across Kansas.

Fell said they’re also looking into a Safer Grant in future budgets. Safer grants provide three years of match funding for a fire department to hire firefighters. After that time period, the department is on its own. It’s a grant that helped Wichita hire 42 additional firefighter positions in 2021.

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