Volunteer chiefs have unique challenges when it comes to developing incident preplans, specifically the number of personnel available to respond at any given time. Often, chiefs have no idea how many on-call or volunteer members will be able available to respond to an incident and, without data, they simply don’t have the information needed to map out a plan. Indeed, even combination and progressively staffed departments wrestle with the issue, including in Plymouth, Minn., where Chief Rick Kline said he’s grappled with developing an incident management plan because of his department’s unique staffing arrangements.

The Plymouth Fire Department is a progressive, full-service department with 78 paid-on-call firefighters protecting 70,576 residents. Fire-department services are provided through a staffed station (duty crew) program and a traditional page-out system, Kline said. The duty crew consists of a four-person team ready to answer fire and emergency calls from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and is made up of part-time, paid-on-call firefighters supervised by two full-time captains. Evening and Sunday calls are answered via the traditional on-call, page-out system, he said.

The department previously was on the traditional page-out system. Now, Kline said members are assigned blocks of time throughout the week — via a schedule that is flexible enough to be regularly and consistently updated. In addition, the system lets him assign a person to be physically located at the station and not at another job or at their home.

The system can be used at combination as well as strictly volunteer stations and can help the department grow in numbers. In fact, Kline believes chiefs can use preplanned staffing plans to put a body into the fire station 24/7, as well as to reserve offsite members for any incidents that may occur — while also supporting recruitment efforts by meeting the needs of the Gen-Y and younger volunteers called to serve who expect their time to be used wisely.

“The newer generation has higher expectations of time management and they want to schedule their time to volunteer,” he said, adding the scheduling preplan now has been adopted throughout his department across generational lines.

“I think the other generations also have seen the benefit of knowing when they are working,” Kline said.

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