HAMPDEN – The decision on whether or not Hampden’s fire department will transition from a volunteer department to a call department with three call firefighters will be decided at a town meeting on May 8 of this year.

According to Hampden Fire Chief Michael Garski, having a volunteer department has been a problem for years due to a decline in volunteers, volunteers moving on to other departments, and changing obligations in work hours with many people having to work from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. or 9 A.M.  to 6 P.M.

“We started seeing some shortfalls in a number of things – recruitment, and even of our firefighters from being able to respond to starting about 8 years ago,” Garski told Reminder Publications. “That’s when I first talked to the [Hampden] selectmen.”

This subsequently has resulted in a scenario more than once where there has been a fire in Hampden and the Fire Department has had to rely on mutual aid from other towns so the fire can be extinguished. According to Garski, a lot of calls have happened when the volunteer firefighters were at work.

“If there was a call at two o’ clock tomorrow afternoon, I can’t tell you if there’s going to be one or zero or five firefighters in town,” said Garski.

This is not an ideal situation because unlike surrounding towns, Hampden runs on well water. While this is doable for homes and small businesses in the town, there are no fire hydrants.

“There’s no hydrants in this town. There’s no municipal water system,” Garski explained. “We’re hauling water with these trucks and first-line truck comes in with 2,000 gallons of water.”

According to Garski, Tanker 1 can hold 2,500 gallons of water and Tanker 2 can hold 2,000 gallons of water. The Fire Department also utilizes a dry hydrant to get more water from lakes, ponds, and rivers in Hampden.

“If we’re able to mobilize all of our equipment, we can move almost 8,000 gallons of water to that fire scene,” said Garski.

Garski also noted that the possibility of a fire truck used by a company giving mutual aid being able to carry its own water is slim because most other towns in the area have running water and fire hydrants.

There is also the bigger concern that the time it takes for mutual aid to get to the scene of a fire could take too long.

“Time is our enemy,” said Garski. “When we’re getting just a couple people arriving from their homes to get here to get to a fire, we’re running into situations where we’re seeing a lot of structural damage at fires upon our arrival.”

The budget that was initially proposed at a Board of Selectmen meeting in February was about $265,000, both to pay the three full-time firefighters who would come on board and to convert the Hampden Fire Department from a volunteer department to a call department.

According to Garski, other concerns were also outlined in the budget such as money for uniforms, an addition to the station, and plans to buy a new truck.

“We generally budget a new fire truck every five years in the town and we get a debt exclusion for those five years. Engine 1 is in its last year to be paid off, so the cycle would begin again next year,” said Garski. “One of the items in that budget is that we need to replace a very obsolete 43-year-old truck, and when we get that new truck, which would be two years from now… they don’t make small fire trucks anymore.”

An additional budget concern is in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts prevailing wage must be paid for all construction, which includes any work done on the fire station, Garski explained.

While having three paid firefighters will lift a huge burden on the volunteers, the Hampden Fire Department will still be using volunteers to supplement the call firefighters if that is something approved by the townspeople of Hampden in May, Garski said.

This is because sometimes more than three firefighters are needed for situations such as a large brush or structural fire, or to aid victims in a multi-car accident.

That would be possible because all the volunteers currently serving the town of Hampden have graduated from the fire academy and according to Garski, have to have a high level of training to be considered as a volunteer for the Hampden Fire Department and then must continue training 160 hours a year. The same would be true if they made the transitione to a call department.

According to Garski, most of the volunteer firefighters that serve on the Hampden Fire Department are also trained EMTs.

A social media campaign to help bring awareness to the town is currently running on the Hampden Fire Department’s FaceBook page.

“I’m surprised to know that some of the people that have been reading this were not aware of what the Fire Department situation was,” said Garski. “Some people think we get paid and we don’t, we’re all volunteers. Some people thought that there were more people in town and there are not.”

While there is always down time between calls to a fire or someone in need of medical assistance, there would still be plenty to do for a call crew of three. According to a recent FaceBook post written by Garski, the crew would be responsible for conducting fire inspections, public education, maintenance and chores at the fire station, checking all the fire trucks to ensure they work properly for necessary use, installing home or commercial propane tanks, and other duties that are under the purview of the Hampden Fire Department.

 “In the past, I think the town really benefitted a lot from having a volunteer Fire Department but a lot of things have changed over the years,” said Garski. “The type of structures, the type of fires, the heat of the fires, what we expect firefighters to do. We know in rural firefighting that the thing that is going to preserve property the most is getting there as quickly as we can and having a lot of water.”

If a call department is favored at the town meeting, Garski’s plan is to look for call firefighters internally from the current list of volunteers.

The call crew would work during the day when the coverage is needed the most.