Too many calls, too few volunteers: Rural Nebraska fire department feeling the strain

DOUGLAS, Neb. (KLKN) — A rural Nebraska fire department has seen an increase in calls but a decrease in volunteers.

Chief Joe Moller with Douglas Volunteer Fire & Rescue said firefighters are few and far between.

The department, in a village 20 miles southeast of Lincoln, currently has 16 firefighters and eight emergency medical services personnel.

But the chief said it needs 25 firefighters and 12 EMS volunteers.

Moller has worn the Douglas Fire patch for 46 years, and in that time, there has been a big increase in calls.

“It started out with maybe 15 calls a year for a fire call back when I first started,” he said. “We had no ambulance service or even an EMS service.”

Now they’re reaching 50 calls a year, and it’s only May.

The calls are tougher, he said, and the emotional toll is even tougher.

“A lot of the people we take care of we know personally, and that kind of sticks with you, and it’s hard to get that out of your mind,” Moller said.

He said the days when firefighters’ jobs were in the same town that they volunteered in are long gone.

Now, they work elsewhere, which means it takes them longer to respond — if they can leave work at all.

“When I first started, there was a lot of local businesses here,” he said. “Just about everybody that worked at the businesses or even owned them was on the fire department.”

But now Douglas is a bedroom community.

On top of responding to calls, volunteer firefighters have to do hazardous material drills, CPR certifications and engine maintenance.

Moller said just to become a firefighter, recruits would need 86 hours of training.

It is a lot of work to do for free.

And people value family time, which Moller said is the hardest sacrifice to make.

He said his biggest fear is the trickle-down effect of not having enough people.

If the volunteers dry up, the Douglas department will have to close.

“And that’s just going to triple the response time for the neighboring town,” he said. “They’re going to get overwhelmed from covering their calls and our calls.”