The recent fires in Bastrop and closer to home in Montgomery County point out the need to support volunteers who are at the heart of the effort. As Lisa Falkenberg points out in a recent Houston Chronicle article:
The firefighters of the Heart of the Pines Volunteer Fire Department answered a radio call for help from nearby Bastrop last Sunday, asking what they could bring. “Send everything you got,” a voice from Bastrop responded. And they did.
The 24 volunteer firefighters – whose day jobs include everything from truck driver to college chemistry lecturer to retired pre-kindergarten teacher – are among 30,000 volunteers statewide whose departments represent about 70 percent of the state’s firefighters. In Texas, these volunteers are the front-line defense against wildfires, and they’re often under-funded, many without local taxpayer support, surviving on bake sales and barbecue fundraisers.
At the same time though the article goes on to document the needs of these volunteers in light of recent cuts to the resources they rely on.
“We lack basic protective gear,” says John Banning, a veteran City of Austin firefighter who volunteers as a lieutenant for Heart of the Pines. “We’re surviving, but we’re borderline.”
The state recently cut more than $32 million for the biennium from a grant program designed to help the volunteers buy equipment and other items, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told me Friday he’s considering restoring some of that funding.
Overall this situation shows that volunteers are an essential resource to community welfare, but they are not equipped to do the job alone. Even in times of cutbacks you cannot treat volunteers just as any government service unit. Particularly if they are expected to carry more of the load in light of those cuts.