Monday, April 17, 2000 Towns face an acute shortage of firefighters The Associated Press Copyright © 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. E-mail this story to a friend   STANDISH — Don Trafford remembers the sick feeling of standing outside a burning college dormitory, hot as an oven and billowing thick smoke, with only two other firefighters on hand to rescue the student he was told may have been trapped inside. ''It's like your stomach sinks as far down as it can, and you're trying to think of what you can do, within human limits,'' said Trafford, chief of the Standish fire department. The episode is one example of a shortage of volunteer firefighters in Maine and nationwide that makes it hard to get enough people to a blaze in the first few minutes when lives are most likely to be saved. It turned out no one needed to be rescued from the dorm at St. Joseph's College, and more firefighters arrived within minutes. But a larger volunteer roster would have improved the odds that more people could have responded sooner. ''A half-hour into the incident, I was still scrambling for manpower, trying to get the building searched and ventilated and everything,'' he said. The April 3 fire caused about $100,000 in damage. No one was hurt. The firefighter shortage has compromised fire protection in some areas, and it's most acute in rural states such as Maine, where 430 of the state's 494 fire departments rely solely on volunteers, according to a legislative commission. The commission found in an informal survey last year that 28 percent of volunteer departments had fewer staff than five years ago, and more than a third of the departments had five or fewer firefighters to respond to a daytime fire. Nationwide, the number of volunteer firefighters dropped by 9 percent, or about 80,000, from 1983 to 1998, according to the National Fire Protection Association in Quincy, Mass. But the growing volume and variety of incidents, including chemical spills and highway accidents in addition to fires, mean the time demands for volunteers are greater than ever. ''Community expectations have changed tremendously. Cities expect the fire department to respond to a much greater number of incidents,'' said Steve Willis, a fire training administrator at Southern Maine Technical College. And there are the long hours of training needed to keep up with changing duties and enhanced safety. ''A new person coming in 25 years ago . . . would have been given a coat, helmet and boots, and they would have been a member of the department,'' said Robert Lefebvre, chief of the Gorham fire department. ''They would have learned as they went.'' Classes and training exercises that can add up to more than 120 hours over several months are a hard sell for people who also have families and paying jobs to tend to, fire chiefs say. And federal and state regulations also add to the time commitment with new requirements such as medical evaluations and physical fitness tests. ''The bottom line is, people say they just don't have time,'' said Larry Lilley, chief of the Hudson fire department. Willis said the fire department in South Windham had 30 regular members with a waiting list to get in when he joined in 1970. Now it has 15 regular members and it's a constant recruiting struggle, he said. ''Society has changed,'' he said. ''People are horrendously busy.'' Calling for help from surrounding towns is helpful but has its limits, Lilley said. It takes 10 minutes to get a pumper truck and a crew to his nearest community, he said, while the fire doubles every three minutes. Lawmakers in Augusta have proposed a commission to look for ways to deliver training funds and death benefits, among other incentives, to keep more volunteers on the team, according to Rep. Randall Berry, D-Livermore. As of Friday, funding had been cut from nearly $2 million to $376,502, but the bill still contained funds for three full-time and 32 part-time instructors to deliver standardized training to local fire departments. While lawmakers worked out the bill's details last week in the waning days of the legislative session, 12 students held a review session in preparation for their final test 45 miles away at a Westbrook fire hall. The curriculum, outlined in hundreds of pages, was stocked with fine details of the job: The explosive concentrations of household gases like propane and butane. The proper type of rope to use in rescuing someone. Setting up a ladder safely. The types of fires that are attacked with water or with specially designed foam. One student said it's too much to learn on the job like firefighters did in the old days. ''You'd end up being a casualty or a hindrance if you just showed up on the scene and tried to learn this job,'' said Doug Estes, 33, an electronic technician in Windham.