On an island everyone fights a fire. It’s a fact. It’s like that with all emergencies on islands. Community residents respond during a time of crisis, and a fire on an unbridged island is definitely a crisis.
Response time to a fire call on most islands is generally very good, but on some of the smaller islands where the fire departments consist mostly of lobstermen, response time can be delayed on a good hauling day.
On the mainland, help from fire departments in neighboring towns is readily available, but mutual aid on the islands is not so quick to arrive. Islands served by a vehicle ferry could receive help from mainland fire departments, although that mutual aid is often an hour or more away. Islands without vehicle ferry service are not as fortunate, however, and mutual aid might arrive in a lobster boat, a mail boat, any kind of boat, or even a plane, as in the case of the recent fire on Matinicus. Responders arriving would hand-carry whatever they could to help fight a fire.
Islesboro’s chief, Murton Durkee, says, “If we needed mutual aid it would come from Lincolnville or Camden and it would arrive within an hour.” The ferry trip to Islesboro is 3 miles from Lincolnville. “Even though an hour seems like a long time when fighting a fire, it really isn’t. The arrival of mutual aid from the mainland would relieve my men who would be tired after an hour of fighting a fire.”
Other islands are not as fortunate when it comes to mutual aid response times. For help to arrive on some islands it could take more than two hours. That’s why it’s important for island fire departments to be well equipped and well trained, and have adequate manpower available.
There are many obstacles in the way of adequately staffing, training, and equipping a volunteer island fire department. Each island is different in its needs, but also has many similarities in providing fire protection for its community. Wildland and grass fires pose a much greater threat on islands than structure fires.
“The biggest concern for our department right now is the condition of the wildland areas,” said Vinalhaven fire chief Marc Candage. “The danger of a catastrophic fire is pretty high. Trying to convince landowners to clear trees from along driveways to allow access for fire equipment is not easy. We don’t see much compliance from homeowners.” Fire chiefs on several islands reiterated the same sentiment about the very real threat of a wildland fire and the difficulty faced in accessing and controlling it. “The forest areas have a lot of dead trees making it hard to get to the fire to fight it,” said Frenchboro fire chief Chris Sawyer. Chief Durkee agrees, “We have a structure fire on average about every five years, but the woods and grass fires have a much higher potential on all islands.”
Manpower
Members of island fire departments are volunteers from the community. The fire chief on an island may draw some kind of pay, but the members are volunteers. Fire departments tend to have many more members listed on their rosters than actually participate in the department’s activities, meetings, training and work details. This appears to be common among the various island departments, not unlike the situation with mainland departments. Islesboro has about 14 active members and has just formed a junior firefighter group with five members. Chief Durkee says, “Everyone is in the same boat. You have a core group of volunteers that hang on, but you could always use more members.” Chief Sawyer says in the past he has posted notices in the town report asking for volunteers. Swan’s Island is also making an effort to recruit new members, and among the active members, the group is fairly young. Candage, who has been the fire chief on Vinalhaven for 10 years, says, “We are not actively recruiting at this time. We have 35 members on our roster and of those, 25 are pretty active in the department.”
Candage’s position became a full-time one in 2004. Providing fire protection for Vinalhaven’s year-round population of 1,200 residents, which more than triples in the summer, is a full-time job. “We hardly have any structure fires,” he said. “Most of our calls come from car accidents, oil spills and fires in the woods.”
Many island fire departments also provide support for the ambulance services on their islands. Some of the fire fighters are also trained as First Responders, EMTs or certified ambulance drivers. Fire department members often show up for medical emergency calls to assist with transport of victims, or just as backup to direct traffic and help out in any way that is needed. Island fire departments and rescue services often share the same space for their apparatus, equipment, and also share some of the same personnel.
The differences among island fire departments are as unique as the islands themselves, from tiny Frenchboro, with less than five square miles and about 50 people to the busy “metropolis” of Vinalhaven with about 25 square miles of land and over 1,200 year-round residents and islands of all sizes in between. Most island populations double or triple in the summer months, making the threat of fire and rescues even greater during the dry time of the year. Although the population and fire danger increases during the summer months resulting in a higher call volume, the number of firefighters on the islands does not go up, greatly increasing the workload. Island fire departments are also responsible to provide protection for many offshore islands in their jurisdiction. Islesboro is responsible for Seven Hundred Acre Island, which has a summer population of about 60 people. The Islesboro fire department keeps a one ton mini-pumper on Seven Hundred Acre Island and would have to respond by boat if a fire broke out there.
Training
Even if you have a large number of active members in your fire department, they still need to be well trained in order to respond to any number of situations they may be presented with. Everyone on the island shows up when there’s a fire and wants to help, but during an emergency is not the time to stop and show someone how to operate a piece of equipment. Training is an essential part of a fire department, but not all islands have adequate training programs in place.
Most big city fire departments have paid members, paid training, paid vacation and benefits. Not on islands. If the town can afford to, and the job warrants it, the Fire Chief gets paid, either full-time as on Vinalhaven. On Frenchboro, a small annual stipend of $250 is paid to the chief. On Islesboro, members are paid for the hours that they spend training. The idea of compensation for training is a good one, promoting better attendance at training sessions.
“Training is always an issue”, said Swan’s Island fire chief Robert Gardner. Gardner, who has been the chief for just over two years now, says, “It’s no problem getting members to show up when there’s a fire, but getting them out for training is hard.” Swan’s Island’s fire department tries to offer some on-island training through the state funded program, Maine Fire Training and Education. They recently held a pumps training course on the island, which was attended by 12 members.
On Frenchboro, fire chief Chris Sawyer says, “I’m the only one that has any training at all and that was as a junior firefighter with Tremont Fire Department when I lived on the mainland years ago…every available body, man or woman, would come out to help in the event of a fire, but we do need training. It would be hard for us to go off island for training.”
Chief Durkee, who has been in command for 24 years, runs a regularly scheduled training program on Islesboro. The department has a training topic once a month at its meeting, as well as twice-yearly training on-island led by Chris Farley, state fire instructor for Maine Fire Training and Education. Instructor Farley also travels to other islands to offer on-island training for fire departments. Bringing instructors and training to the islands seems to be the best solution to meet training needs. Not all levels of training can be offered on the islands and recently several island departments have had members attend Fire Fighter Academy, completing Fire Fighter I and II training. The course, which consists of 233 hours of training, meets the nationally recognized standard for fire fighter skills.
Islesboro’s assistant fire chief and another member recently completed the Firefighter I and II training traveling to the mainland town of Bucksport to attend class. Swan’s Island also had two department members attend the Hancock County Fire Fighter Academy offered in the Ellsworth area. The training required the men to leave home for a total of eleven weekends to complete. At the graduation ceremony for the Hancock County course, lead instructor Kevin Bland acknowledged the extra commitment made by the two students among the 24 graduates that traveled from Swan’s Island. One of the Swan’s Island volunteer firefighters that attended the Hancock County Fire Fighter I and II Academy was a recipient of an Island Institute McLane Scholarship in the amount of $1,000, which helped to offset the travel and hotel expenses of attending the course.
Vinalhaven’s chief Candage was able to make arrangements with a certified Fire Fighter trainer out of Rockland, who arranged to work with volunteer members of the Vinalhaven fire department to offer the Fire Fighter II component of the training on the island. Eight members started out, and six will finish the course this year. Even though most of the training was held on Vinalhaven, the students still needed to go off-island on several occasions to Wiscasset and Rockland for some of the more advanced portions of the course. This level of training would be a huge commitment for anyone to make, but members from mainland departments get to go home at the end of a long day of training, while island firefighters get to spend two nights in a motel each weekend.
Equipment
If an island department has managed to institute an effective training program, it still need to have the proper fire fighting equipment and apparatus for firefighters to be effective. If a piece of equipment fails during an emergency you need a backup, so an island fire department has a more pressing need for dependable equipment than a mainland department.
Overall, fire chiefs felt that the departments were well supported and funded by their towns. Islesboro’s Chief Durkee commented, “The town is very supportive of most of our equipment needs. Our training needs are supported through the town budget.” The Friends of the Islesboro Fire Department is an independent organization on the island that does some fundraising and supports some of the extra equipment needs of the department, such as a thermal imaging camera and a Jaws of Life extrication tool.
“The town is very generous to the Fire Department,” reported Swan’s Island chief Gardner. Frenchboro chief Sawyer got only $2,500 last year from the town for the fire department, but said, “The department is not adequately funded, but it’s better than it used to be.”
“Thanks to Swan’s Island fire department, we have a portable dump tank and Tremont has given us some Indian packs,” said Sawyer. “We definitely need more equipment.” Frenchboro has one truck, a 1969 Sanford 750-gallon pumper/tanker, which Sawyer reports is in good working condition. “We are waiting for the state to send us a one-ton pickup with a portable tank that we can use in the forest areas. Also, the women on the island would be able to drive a one-ton truck, as they are often the only ones on the island to respond at times.”
Frenchboro’s year-round population of 60 makes it difficult to have a well-trained, adequately equipped fire department. According Sawyer the island has a real need for more equipment and more training. The department has very limited personal protective gear. There is not one firefighter on Frenchboro with a complete set of turnout gear, the protective wear that all firefighters should have. A new set of turnout gear costs about $1,500 per firefighter, certainly not within Frenchboro’s budget. “We need more support, funding, training, and equipment. Basically, we need everything,” Sawyer said.
No matter where you are, if you are performing the duties of a firefighter, you need proper training, dependable equipment, town funding, and community support.