HAMPDEN – The town’s Volunteer Fire Department hopes to make the transition to a call department by hiring a skeleton crew of three full time firefighters to work weekdays in order to better protect the town.

If the Board of Selectmen approve a $250,000 increase in the town’s budget to pay for the salaries and benefits of the skeleton crew, Town Meeting voters this spring would ultimately have the final say on whether or not to approve the change to the department, Fire Chief Michael Gorski told Reminder Publications.

He added the Hampden Volunteer Fire Department was created in 1930 and has operated on a volunteer basis since that time.

“People don’t get paid at all and there was a time when I joined 30 something years ago we had 40 firefighters and it was capped at 40 and we had a waiting list to get on,” he explained. “It took me three or four years to get on it. In these days, we’ve got 5,000 residents and only 20 people from Hampden have volunteered. We’ve got maybe five people from other towns, but that leaves us with a force of 25 people. Now, most of those people work out of town. If we get in a call at 2 a.m., at midnight, or on a Saturday or a Sunday, we probably have plenty of people to fight that fire, but if it’s Monday through Friday during the work hours – people are off at their jobs and people don’t work in town like they did in the old days.”

Gorski said the town’s firefighting forces are very thin and sometimes he can’t guarantee that any volunteer firefighters would be available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

“So, we certainly have been working very hard to fill holes, but at this point in time we had a couple of people that have moved onto other jobs,” he explained. “They used to be around town and aren’t anymore. Right now we’re really in a crisis situation where there is a possibility that we could get a call during the work week and the only thing we could rely on is the mutual aid coming in from our neighboring communities.”

He said he believes relying on mutual aid is fine every once in a while, but the town can’t rely on neighboring communities to solve the long-term problem of the department’s staffing level.

Gorski said the selectmen are expressed their concerns about “putting too much onto the taxpayers.”

He added, “I don’t know if they support this proposal, but they’ve been working with us and we’re all looking for some sort of a solution here.”

It’s only a matter of time until another high profile fire breaks out in Hampden, Gorski said. Recent fires include one that occurred shortly after Christmas on Stony Hill Road and another on Stafford Road. During both of these fires, the Hampden Fire Department had limited manpower and relied on mutual aid.

He said if the fires had occurred an hour later in the day he’s unsure if anyone from the Hampden Fire Department would have been available to help combat the flames.

“Fire can double in size every single minute,” he explained. “Minutes are precious and we think that having a skeleton crew in town would be very helpful to us.”