LJWorld.com

When a call comes to respond to a fire or traffic accident, they go.

It doesn't matter what they are doing at home or at work. It doesn't matter if they have to drive a 30-year-old fire truck to get there. And it doesn't matter that they don't get paid.

But volunteer firefighters in Douglas County are becoming harder to find.

Nobody knows that better than LeRoy Boucher, longtime chief of the Lecompton Fire & Rescue Department. He has seen his department in recent years drop from an average of 20 or more volunteer firefighters to about a dozen.

"The kids now, they got full-time jobs and they just can't drop everything and run," Boucher said. "A lot of them work in Kansas City or Lawrence and they can't respond in the daytime."

'A dying breed'

Dan Hardtarfer, Clinton Township fire chief, agreed. He heads a department of 10 firefighters, who respond to fires in areas around Clinton and Lone Star lakes.

"It's a dying breed," Hardtarfer said about volunteer firefighters. "It's hard to recruit people because of their (daily) schedules."

Photo by Thad Allender

Dan Hardtarfer is a volunteer firefighter for the Clinton Township Fire Station. As the township chief, Hardtarfer is responsible for everything from changing motor oil in the trucks to filling the water tanks. Hardtarfer and others say it's becoming more difficult to find volunteers for township fire departments. He's pictured Wednesday at the township's fire station.

The recruitment situation is a little better for the Wakarusa Township Fire Department. The department has four full-time, paid employees, including Chief Chris Moore. It has two stations: one at 1230 N. 1800 Road north of Lawrence, and one at 31st and Louisiana streets, which has one full-time staff member on duty 24 hours a day. It currently has 18 volunteers, but recruits are always sought, Moore said.

"It's not something we struggle with so much as some of the other departments since we're situated on the outskirts of Lawrence," said Moore, who has been chief more than two years.

Wakarusa firefighters in recent years have responded to an average of about 220 calls, including 100 emergency medical calls. The department requires its firefighters to go through a 120-hour class to become certified in Kansas as a Firefighter 1. Many of the firefighters also are trained as emergency medical technicians or first-responder medics.

The Wakarusa department is often used by young firefighters as a place to get their training and experience before moving on to a bigger department. They have often been hired by Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical and departments in Johnson and Leavenworth counties, Moore said. But many of them also continue working as volunteers for Wakarusa and may spend 20 hours a month working at the station ready to handle calls, he said.

Moreover, none of the current firefighters live in Wakarusa Township, Moore said.

"We've been pretty fortunate to find a good group of guys who are dedicated to something they don't have a vested interest in," he said.

• 6News video: Volunteer firefighters in need of more volunteers (06-16-05)

Helpful volunteers

That is not the case in Clinton Township, where the firefighters live in their district, Hardtarfer said.

"I moved out in the neighborhood and felt like I ought to help out my neighbors," said Hardtarfer, who also holds down a job as an aerial truck driver as a 22-year-veteran of the Lawrence fire department.

Other township firefighters volunteer for the same reason, Hardtarfer said. They respond to more than 20 fire calls a year, he said.

"We are a very small township in comparison to some of the other townships, and our equipment is horribly outdated," Hardtarfer said. "We're going through a lot of changes. We're actually pursuing the purchase of a new truck. It's just a matter of getting board members to write that check."

Hardtarfer hopes a used fire truck can be purchased with grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. An application has been made, but it won't be known if it is granted for several months. A truck could cost up to $100,000, he said. Currently, the department's youngest truck is more than 30 years old.

Most of the county's volunteer fire departments are funded and come under the control of township boards. Several years ago Lecompton's fire department was under the control of both a township board and the City Council. The two entities couldn't get along, so Boucher formed a fire district board that includes six people and himself as chief. The chief votes on matters only to break a tie, he said.

"It was the only way I could get anything done," Boucher said.

Boucher started as a volunteer firefighter in the early 1970s and was chief of the Oskaloosa area department in Jefferson County before moving to Lecompton and becoming chief.

Lecompton is a growing area and Boucher said he thought the time was near for a full-time staff member to be hired for the station, at least during the day. And Boucher is ready to retire.

"If I could get somebody to take over the chief's job, I'd be willing to step out of this," he said. "I'm going to be 67 pretty quick, and that's too old for this."