08/30/2026
Joey Baker
2h
·
So who is better?
I recently made a post encouraging people to consider volunteering with their local fire department, and it got me thinking about something I don't think we talk about enough.
Career fire departments are important. Volunteer fire departments are important. And supporting one doesn't mean you have to diminish the other.
There are communities where a fully staffed career department makes perfect sense. The population, call volume, and needs of the community justify having firefighters in the station 24 hours a day, ready to respond.
There are also communities where a volunteer department makes perfect sense. Providing 24/7 career staffing comes with significant costs, including salaries, benefits, facilities, equipment, and everything else necessary to operate a department. Some smaller communities simply don't have the population, call volume, or tax base to support that model.
And then there are communities where a combination of career and volunteer personnel works best.
None of those models makes the people answering the call more or less dedicated to the people they serve.
Something else I think is often misunderstood:
Volunteer does not mean untrained.
Training and certification requirements vary from state to state and department to department, but volunteer firefighters across this country dedicate significant time to learning and practicing the skills necessary to safely serve their communities. Many train to the same nationally recognized professional standards used throughout the fire service.
The word "volunteer" describes how they are compensated. It does not describe how seriously they take the responsibility.
One firefighter may be receiving a paycheck when the tones drop, while another may be leaving dinner, getting out of bed at 2 a.m., or walking away from their regular job to answer the call.
And here's something else the public may not realize: career and volunteer firefighters aren't operating in two separate worlds.
They can, and often do, respond to the very same emergency.
A volunteer department may be dispatched to a structure fire with career departments responding as mutual aid. A career department may have volunteer departments coming to assist them. Combination departments can bring career and volunteer personnel together within the same system.
When they arrive on scene, they're working together toward the same goal: protecting lives, protecting property, and serving the community.
Both deserve our respect.
And as I said in my original post, volunteering doesn't necessarily mean becoming a firefighter. Departments need people willing to help with fundraising, administration, events, social media, photography, maintenance, fire police, kitchen committees, and countless other things that keep a department running.
I spent many years in paid emergency services, and today I also have the privilege of serving as a volunteer. I've seen the value of both.
This doesn't need to be career vs. volunteer.
In fact, on emergency scenes across our communities, it often isn't.
It should be about making sure every community has the people, resources, and support necessary to answer when someone calls for help.
Because when someone's worst day happens, I don't think they care whether the person coming to help them is paid or volunteer.
They just care that someone is coming.
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