HANCOCK COUNTY, Maine — The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, is awarding $1.2 million grant to help towns in Hancock County recruit and retain volunteer firefighters.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, 93 percent of Maine's fire departments heavily rely on volunteers, but some towns struggle to find people to fill those roles.
"It's imperative we build a system that supports these volunteers and get them what they need in order to be successful," Ellsworth Fire Chief Scott Guillerault said.
Ellsworth, Dedham, Hancock, Lamoine, Mariaville, Orland, and Trenton will collaborate to create a program aimed to increase the number of volunteers in their departments.
The goal is to recruit and train 80 volunteers from all seven communities over the next four years, Guillerault said.
"If we don't have volunteers, we don't have firefighters, and if we don't have firefighters, we can't respond," Naomi Graychase, Orland volunteer firefighter, said.
Ellsworth has a handful of paid firefighters on staff, but departments like Orland runs on volunteers.
Orland's Fire Chief Bobby Conary works full time at Hancock County's 911 dispatch center. But he said he has to leave work a couple times a month to respond to a call.
"I've left from here, my paying job, using vacation time to respond to calls where I've actually got to my fire station and driven a truck to the scene because we just didn't have a lot of people available," Conary said.
Guillerault said this grant will benefit all seven towns, as oftentimes towns need to send mutual aid.
"We rely on the communities that surround us to come and help us to back us up for our manpower, so it's twofold," Guillerault said. "We build up our volunteer base to help our firefighters here at the station, but we also build those volunteer forces in the communities that surround Ellsworth because not only are we going to them, they're coming to us."