Milford’s Carlisle Fire Co. looks to the future

Noah Zucker
Posted 1/26/21

This article has been updated to correct information about New Castle County fire companies.

MILFORD — City Council members heard a presentation about the state of Carlisle Fire Co. …

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Milford’s Carlisle Fire Co. looks to the future

Posted

This article has been updated to correct information about New Castle County fire companies.

MILFORD — City Council members heard a presentation about the state of Carlisle Fire Co. prior to their meeting Monday.

Tor Hazzard, the volunteer company’s current president, was joined by former Chief Duane Fox.

“We’re saving the taxpayers of the city of Milford about $1,100 a year (each by remaining a volunteer organization),” Mr. Fox said.

If the city had to staff a paid fire department, he said it could cost upward of an additional $5 million a year.

Delaware has a long tradition of volunteer fire departments, and according to Mr. Fox, the Wilmington Fire Department is the only one in the state that doesn’t have a volunteer element.

But in Milford, this tradition is potentially under siege.

Need for new blood
“Every year that goes by, I get older and grayer,” Mr. Fox said.

The same is true for many of Carlisle’s current volunteers.

“We don’t get a lot of young people in here,” he said. “There’s a lot of commitment that it takes, and young folks are busy.”

Mr. Fox added that “there’s just a lot of pull on their resources, especially if they’re into other community activities.”

Mayor Archie Campbell had some insight into this dynamic.

“When I was teaching in the high school, I know there were some young people who joined Carlisle that didn’t stay long,” he said. “Once they start working, they’re very apprehensive about leaving to go to a fire call versus staying to work and (getting) their money.”

Being a volunteer firefighter is time-consuming, Mr. Fox added.

“All the training you have to do, just to get trained enough that the chief is confident to throw you on an engine, takes about two months’ worth of weekends,” he said. “That’s just to be taught — not to have experience.”

He said that “everyone wants to be a fireman until they find out you actually have to do something.”

Increased demand
As the station struggles to recruit a new generation of volunteer firefighters, the demand placed on the department has grown in recent years, although the number of fire calls were blunted to a degree by the pandemic.

Mr. Fox said the department answered 572 fire calls and 3,406 emergency medical services calls in 2020. In total, that averages out to about 11 calls per day.

“I’ve been here 35 years,” Mr. Fox said. “When I first came to the company, we were somewhere around 200 alarms, and this past year was 572.”

Demand for the department’s ambulance services continued to increase in 2020. This increased demand is a function of Milford’s booming and aging population.

In 2010, the town was home to 9,591 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. For 2019, the same organization estimated there were 11,732 Milford citizens.

“Most of the people that are moving here are not young kids,” Mr. Fox said, and many are retirees. “As we get older, the body gives out a little bit, and our EMS needs go up.”

This is one reason demand for ambulance services continued to rise through the pandemic.

While Carlisle’s fire wing is staffed overwhelmingly by volunteers, the same can’t be said of its ambulance division, which is staffed by paid emergency medical technicians. Mr. Fox said Carlisle pays $750,000 annually for these technicians in salaries alone.

At some point, the city will have to begin staffing the fire department in the same way.

“The city’s going to have to look into taking over the fire service because we’re just not going to have anyone who wants to do it for nothing,” Mr. Fox said.

He said staffing the firehouse could cost the city upward of $2 million annually in firefighters’ salaries alone.

Community engagement
Mr. Fox said the community’s current level of support for Carlisle, while deeply appreciated, is not enough to sustain the department as the city continues to grow.

“A lot of these folks are coming from somewhere else. They’re moving to Milford because Delaware has relatively low taxes,” he said. “They expect the services they got wherever they’re from when they were paying for it.”

He said many newcomers don’t realize Carlisle’s firefighters aren’t paid.

“When you come from somewhere where the fire department is paid, you assume in that $10 you pay to the city and the county, that you must be getting the same police and fire service (as) before,” Mr. Fox said.

Additionally, he said the department’s fundraising efforts have been abysmal.

“We do have a fund drive, and our fund drive is horrible,” Mr. Fox said. “It gets next to nothing in payback from the people that live here. I think we get $35,000 to $40,000 a year from the fund drive.”

Councilman Dan Marabello found that metric “embarrassing.”

“I would not have believed that unless I heard it from you,” he said to Mr. Fox. “Maybe we should publish some more information on the fundraiser indicating how much money you do save the city.”

Mayor Campbell said he plans to reach out to the mayor of Middletown for more information about how its emergency response system changed as the town grew. He also hopes to have a meeting at some point with outside experts to determine the best course for Carlisle to take going forward.

Meantime, the city’s leadership is thankful for the volunteers who continue to donate their time, effort and, in many cases, personal safety.

“I just want to say thank you for all the support you give to the community,” Councilman Andrew Fulton said. Several other members of the body echoed this sentiment.

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