West Michigan fire departments received record calls in 2023

WEST MICHIGAN — Many fire departments across the country expect 2023 to be a record year for fire calls, and West Michigan is no exception.

The trend comes amid a major decline in volunteer firefighters.

“Across the board, I think across the country, it’s just difficult. It’s difficult to staff,” said Tim Krizov, chief of the Portland Area Fire Authority. “It’s difficult to get as many people as you want on every call, but you know, we do what we can and we have to do it safely.”

Krizov said his department has remained steady with a staff of approximately two dozen, but fire calls have been anything but.

“I looked back about 10, 11 years and we were averaging 120 calls and then I went back another 10 years, and we were averaging about 60 calls,” Krizov recalled. “(In the) last 10 years, it’s doubled.”

While it’s difficult to pinpoint which types of calls are increasing, Krizov said more accidents on I-96 and a windstorm in August likely drove some of the increases this year.

The challenge, he said, is daytime staffing. Since Portland’s firefighters are only paid for training or when they take a call, everyone has another full-time job.

“It’s hard to keep a staff of five or six during the day,” he said. “It’s just almost impossible.”

The department is keeping up with the help of mutual aid, but if numbers keep heading in this direction, the chief said, he might have to consider bringing on part-time employees for tough-to-staff daytime hours.

The Holland Fire Department has also been busy.

According to social media posts from Holland Professional Firefighters Local 759, the department received its 4,000th call of the year on Dec. 15.

The department averaged close to 350 calls a month in 2023, with over 4,150 calls total projected. That’s up from recent years, including 2020, when Holland fire crews responded to 3,868 calls, 65 percent of which were medical emergencies.

It’s not just smaller cities seeing an influx. The Wyoming Fire Department is expecting a 5% increase in calls compared to last year.

“The highest call volume we’ve had is a little over 7,100 calls in a year. We averaged 21 calls per day (in 2023), so we are on track for 7,500,” said acting chief Dennis Van Tassell.

He believes there could be several reasons why.

“It might be the influx of people because the city is growing, we have more buildings, more people driving, more accidents. … In general, it’s aging population nationwide and so we’re seeing medicals that way, too.”

The good news for Wyoming is a millage passed by voters in May will allow the department to add 12 firefighters.

According to the U.S. Fire Administration, recruitment and retention have become two of the biggest challenges for fire and emergency services. In 1984, there were close to 898,000 volunteer firefighters. That number dropped to approximately 677,000 in 2020.

A 2020 survey by the National Volunteer Fire Council showed more than two-thirds of respondents felt their departments had a problem with volunteer retention and nearly half of the volunteers considered leaving the fire service at some point.

Although it’s difficult to know what the long-term impacts will be, the USFA report showed the pandemic played a role in fire and emergency service volunteerism. Many departments no longer have extra funding to recruit and retain.

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COVID-19 did, however, bring more awareness to the work of first responders and led to more remote work opportunities, creating a new pool of people available to volunteer.

For now, agencies like Wyoming, Portland and Holland will have to keep an eye on the numbers to determine how best to keep their communities safe.

— The Holland Sentinel contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: West Michigan fire departments received record calls in 2023