The Boght Fire Department will be getting some extra help after Gov. David A. Paterson on Friday, July 30, signed into law a bill that would allow the department to recruit more volunteers from outside of the fire district, in areas such as the city of Cohoes.
The legislation (A. 11023/S.7872), sponsored by Assemblyman Bob Reilly, D-Colonie, and Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Delmar, would allow the department to recruit more than 55 percent of its volunteers from outside the district. The law would also apply to several other fire departments in different counties.
It opens it up to anyone, said Reilly. `You could live in Cohoes and be closer to the firehouse than if you were at the other end of the district.`
He noted that membership in organizations such as the Elks Club and the German-American Club in Albany have seen their membership numbers go down but volunteerism in the fire department has been very strong.
`Volunteer fire fighting is a completely different animal,` he said. `The time of calls and the training is very extensive, and I have never heard them complain.`
Kirby Hannon, legislative representative for the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York, said proximity was the most important issue that will be solved by this bill, considering how close Cohoes is to the Boght Fire House.
`You would wind up with one volunteer who lives within the district who is seven to eight minutes away and then you have one who’s excluded who lives a block away,` he said of the rules that were previously in place. `It’s kind of counterintuitive.`
Boght Fire Chief Eric Clough said the older law `didn’t make sense.`
`It gives us a faster response time,` he said. `We’ve talked about it a long time and think a lot of people needed to get the idea across in order to pass legislation.`
Daytime response will increase, Hannon said, since the response area will grow from only having 45 percent of volunteers come from outside the district, which was what the previous law had stipulated. He also said that the department will have more flexibility in who they are able to recruit, but said there will be no need to worry about an influx of volunteers or stealing volunteers from a different department.
`[The bill] does not allow a fire department to raid another department,` he said. `And if the department felt they were getting too many volunteers, they have their own bylaws to take care of that.`
Clough said it can be hard to look for volunteers, and the particular situation that sparked this legislation saw them turn away three volunteers because they were outside of the district.
`You always want to get those volunteers,` he explained. `You can never have too many volunteers with either fighting fires or doing things around the fire house.`
The bill is mainly considered a local bill because it is not a statewide bill, according to Reilly. He said even though he has been focused on passing the budget, he was happy to do something for his constituents.
`I consider this constituent service,` he said. `It’s really quite helpful to individual organizations.`
Hannon also stressed that having volunteer fire fighters saves towns billions of dollars as it costs $7.5 billion to $8 billion to support career firefighters.
`It’s all about the support of local volunteer fire fighters and EMS,` he said. `Without them, we would have to pay a lot of money.`
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