Trafalgar firefighter Jon O’Brien pulls a saw from an engine at the Trafalgar Fire Department on Monday. The department began staffing it’s department 24/7 with part-time paid 12-hour shifts this year.

Emily Ketterer | Daily Journal

For the first time in 70 years, the Trafalgar Fire Department is staffed 24/7.

The department, since its inception in 1953, always ran 100% volunteer. But that changed at the start of this year by implementing a paid part-time structure to ensure the fire station is staffed 24/7, 365 days of the year.

A main reason for this change is the growing problem among all volunteer fire departments nationwide — a lack of volunteers, said Mark Dunn, Trafalgar fire chief. In the last few years, the Trafalgar Fire Department struggled to recruit and keep its volunteer firefighters.

That’s not uncommon these days in the volunteer firefighting world, Dunn said.

“Not many people have showed up to volunteer their time,” Dunn said. “The members that we do have, are you know, starting families getting married, having kids, kids are getting into sports.”

Trafalgar is also growing, along with the rest of Johnson County. The department, which covers the town of Trafalgar, all of Hensley township and parts of Franklin and Union townships, has seen an increase in runs in the last five to 10 years.

Runs especially picked up more recently, averaging about 100 more per year, Dunn said. In 2020, the department was up 110 runs.

“That doesn’t seem like a lot, but for a small, rural, volunteer department, it’s a pretty good increase,” Dunn said.

An opportunity for the change to paid part-time came after the 2020 census showed growth in the population of the Trafalgar area. In early 2020, the Indiana General Assembly passed House Bill 1065, which allowed fire protection districts with a population increase of more than 6% over a 10-year period to increase property tax levies starting in 2021.

With that legislation, Trafalgar’s fire protection district was able to bring in funds to start paying its firefighters and EMTs.

“We felt it was time to make that jump and provide a better service to the community,” Dunn said.

With the new roster, three people — two firefighter EMTs and a supervisor — are staffed at the department 24/7, working 12-hour shifts. The shifts run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Firefighter EMTs make $15 an hour and firefighters make $12 an hour. The department is currently staffed with 33 people rotating shifts on the roster.

They still rely heavily on volunteers, outside of the three staffing the station each day, to assist with calls. The three at the station on a regular basis can handle around 80% of the calls, which are typically sick people needing an ambulance, injuries or minor car accidents, Dunn said. But they still have to call in volunteers to assist with larger-scale emergencies such as structure fires, or if the others are still out on a call when another comes in.

Having a 24/7 staffed department will also save time on calls, Dunn said.

“Implementing this is gonna save us anywhere from five to 10 minutes on a call in an occupation where not only minutes, but seconds matter sometimes,” he said.

About a week in, Dunn said the new staffing is great for the department. Having people at the station all the time is already improving the morale and family-like culture around the station. Other firefighters who aren’t on the clock are coming around more often to hang out at the station, now that it’s staffed around the clock.

“The volunteer staff that’s not on duty, you know, the younger guys, they’re coming in and no matter what. It’s kind of building that culture of having people here all the time, whether you’re getting paid … it’s it’s a pretty cool concept,” Dunn said.

More than half the fire departments in the United States are volunteer, and many are struggling with staffing volunteers today, Dunn said. This part-time staffing approach was needed for Trafalgar, and he foresees departments having to eventually move away from 100% volunteer, if they haven’t already.

“We haven’t had a call anytime throughout the year where we haven’t had a truck show up. But that’s not the case for a lot of these other small communities, rural communities,” Dunn said.

Trafalgar was one of the last completely volunteer departments in the county, as many of the smaller departments, including Whiteland, New Whiteland and Edinburgh, have switched to paying firefighters and EMTs in some capacity.

“It’s kind of a proud moment for us and our members because we’re the last ones to be volunteer in Johnson County in a time where you know the county as a whole is expanding,” Dunn said.