Local volunteer firefighters were featured by The Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday for their efforts at the SPS Technologies fire in Jenkintown last month.
“Conditions were deteriorating rapidly,” Michael Jones, assistant chief of the Abington Fire Company who coordinated the search and rescue operation, told The Inquirer. “Just standing outside, looking at those three entrances [fire crews] were going into, you could see that we only probably had minutes before we had to evacuate.”
“You would wipe the lens and get maybe five seconds to pan the room,” said Vincent McGurl, assistant chief of the Roslyn Fire Company. “You’d keep going to the next section and start over.”
“The smoke came down on top of us,” said Richard Jones, another assistant chief with the Abington company. “You could see the heat rolling over top.”
The article goes on to note that Pennsylvania had around 300,000 volunteer firefighters in the 1970s. Today, it’s around 30,000 as companies struggle to find younger recruits.
Modern firefighting demands around 200 hours of intensive training, The Inquirer said.
“It’s a lack of manpower,” McGurl said. “The numbers are really going down. It’s a dying thing.”
Tom McAneney, chief of the Edge Hill Fire Company and Abington’s director of fire and emergency services, said his company’s one to two new monthly volunteers replace those leaving the squad.
Companies are also struggling to fundraise for increasingly costly equipment, some of which had to be decontaminated from fire-related toxins. Edge Hill Fire Company is pursuing claims through insurance, The Inquirer said.
In November 2022, leaders kicked off a four-year county-wide strategic recruitment campaign. The Montgomery County Fire Chief’s Association tagline, “Ordinary People. Trained for the Extraordinary,” couples with a new recruitment website and a $686,000 four-year grant, all intended to recruit new volunteer firefighters in the area.
Charles McGarvey, acting State Fire Commissioner, pointed out during a press conference that Pennsylvania had been the national leader in deaths from fires for the previous two years.
Locally, Flourtown, Oreland, Abington, Weldon, Wyndmoor, Edge Hill, Glenside, Pioneer, Independent, Roslyn, McKinley, Elkins Park, Rockledge and Cheltenham fire companies participated in the campaign.
According to Montgomery County’s website, the minimum age to register for Interior Firefighter has been reduced from 18 to 17, as long as parent/guardian and fire chief consent is received.
For more information about volunteering with a company in greater Glenside, you can click here.
For all the latest news, follow us on Facebook or sign up for Glenside Local’s “Daily Buzz” newsletter here.
Photos: Montgomery County Fire Chiefs Association