STRATTANVILLE, Pa. (EYT) – It doesn’t matter about the size of a volunteer fire department in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, or the nation. They are all facing some of the same challenges.
“I think the biggest challenge is manpower,” said Strattanville Volunteer Fire Company Chief Bill Stroup. “I think you’ll find most companies have that challenge.”
Stroup (pictured above) said he had 25 members on the roster, but six or seven of those are social members, and they do not go out on fire calls. He estimates there are 17 active members for the department.
“The average age for us would be about 40,” continued Stroup. “There are about eight below the age of 40. I do have a couple of females, and a couple are EMTs.”
The company is close-knit, and many are cousins.
“We do have families join here the most prevalent is the Rawson family and several members. John Rawson was chief for several years, and he still is the first assistant chief. John is an uncle to Nick Rawson, a former Clarion University student who is now in school to be a medical doctor and spent many years as a member of the company. Judy Meyers, the mother of Nick, is also a member.”
There are no younger people involved, and Stroup isn’t sure if it is a matter of not wanting to get involved or they just don’t know about the fire company.
The main work of the fire company, like most others in Clarion County, is more of a rescue service or used for traffic control.
“As far as actual fires are concerned, we might have one or two a year,” said Stroup. “There are traffic accidents, service calls, a lot of service calls—trees down or lines down, flooded roadways once and a while, and we may go out and assist other fire companies.”
“We’ll assist with I-80 if we’re called, but I don’t want to be a primary response out on I-80, and a lot of that has to do with manpower. If you don’t have the manpower to respond out there, you can’t do it. During the wintertime, there are a good number of calls out there. Clarion and Corsica do a fine job with it.”
State requirements for the number of training firefighters must also take many be a factor in recruiting new members.
“We’ve had new folks start, and once they found out what the training is they come around for a month and then they’re gone. When I took ‘Essentials of Firefighting’ it was 88 hours. Now, it’s up to 188 hours, which is, for a working person, very hard to get. That’s just for essentials and doesn’t include rescue, or if you want to move up in your HAZMAT, or the NIMS classes that we have to take. A lot of that we can do online, but it still takes time dedicated to training. A lot of people just don’t have the time for it.”
With businesses leaving the area such as Owens and Sealy, a vital pool of members was lost.
“A lot of firemen were employed there and could respond during the day. With the loss of Owens and Sealy, during the days now, it is very hard, very tough. We usually get only four guys, at most, to show up. Fortunately, I’m able to leave work, and with the position I have at Clarion Boards, I can leave work for all fire calls. They’re very supportive of the fire companies.”
In addition to training, all of the members must help with fundraising. Strattanville gets no funding from taxes, so money needs to be raised in different ways such as anywhere from asking for contributions to weekly Thursday night Bingo.
“We get small donations, a little from Strattanville Borough. The size of our borough is not big, so there’s not a lot of money. We do get some money from Clarion Township, but the majority of our money is through fundraisers. We have Bingo faithfully every Thursday night, and that’s what pays our utilities in the building.
“There are times we lose money on Bingo because of the players—some of them are now going up to Salamanca or down to the casino— which has kind of hurts our Bingo a little bit. If our jackpot is up, we get a pretty decent crowd. There are a certain few of us who have worked Bingo since we started as firemen. We were having a problem here a few years back when there were five guys working Bingo, and it’s kind of tough to do that. We tried to make it mandatory for all of our members and some of the members said ‘fine,’ we just wouldn’t come.”
“We’re there for the community to help them, and unfortunately, we are a volunteer organization and the keyword being ‘volunteer.’”
The Strattanville Volunteer Fire Company covers all of Strattanville Borough and approximately three-quarters of Clarion Township. Their coverage area is from the boundary of Dean Dam Hill and Millcreek down to Watterson Road as far as M&B on 322.
Stroup has been the fire chief for five years and joined the company in 2001. He is part of a small group of dedicated volunteers keep the fire company running.
Asked about the future, he said, “I really don’t know what to think about the future. Maybe Clarion, New Bethlehem, and Knox have the best chances of being stand-alone companies. If we can’t get more people, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
