Small Department, Big Changes: How One Small Volunteer Fire Department Used Their FOCUS Data In a Big Way

April 15, 2025

By Victoria Gallogly

Volunteer fire and rescue departments make up almost 70% of the entire United States fire and rescue service, with an additional 16% of combination departments being designated as mostly volunteer. These departments are staffed by over 680,000 volunteer and paid-on-call first responders.

In spite of these staggering numbers, volunteer departments often face unique challenges when compared to larger, well-resourced career departments. Volunteer and combination departments are staffed by willing members of the community who choose to engage in first response in their free time, often on top of full-time employment and other commitments. Training requirements for volunteer staff are becoming increasingly demanding, further increasing the overall time commitment.

This is often compounded by organizational-level issues, such as under-representation of volunteer staff in the department and a lack of acknowledgement from leadership. These obstacles can add to the already stressful nature of first response, causing volunteers to leave the profession all together.

Despite these setbacks, volunteer departments are uniquely poised to make department-wide changes to benefit the health and well-being of their volunteer staff. Through analyzing a national sample of 132 fire departments across the nation, the Center for Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trends (FIRST) found that size does matter when it comes to fire departments – leadership in volunteer and combination fire and rescue departments are seen by members to be more committed to safety than their career counterparts.

This strong perceived commitment to safety has the potential to protect volunteers from injuries, near-misses, line-of-duty deaths, and organizational outcomes like burnout, poor job satisfaction, and behavioral health concerns. Departments can measure this safety commitment through FOCUS – the Fire service Organizational Culture of Safety survey.

To date, almost 600 departments and 70,000 firefighters have participated in FOCUS, including over 200 combination and volunteer departments. Organizations have used their data to advocate for gear, staffing, apparatus, and behavioral health resources.

Stephen Trenholm is the assistant chief of the Essex Fire Department in Vermont. This small volunteer fire department has participated in the FOCUS survey two times in the past five years.

After examining their results, Trenholm took notice of some key points of improvement. “We identified that leadership communication was not where we wanted it to be,” he said. The department also showed high levels of burnout, which Trenholm attributed to their rising call volume.

To address issues of communication in the department, Trenholm advocated for sweeping changes. “We restructured how we manage from the top down, empowered our captains to do much more administrative work, and empowered our line officers to do more things relative to staffing and communications,” he explained.

Some of the department’s biggest wins, however, relate to staffing. “We added a second safety officer position, as we think that is an extremely important position,” he said.

Trenholm also presented his data to the Essex town council. “We’ve created a much greater awareness at the town level,” he shared. “They now know exactly what we do, how important things are, and how burnout can affect us.”

By sharing his data directly with the town council, Trenholm was able to hire two additional per diem staff to help mitigate the burnout his members were experiencing. “They answer calls, both medical and fire, 40 hours per week, five days per week,” he explained.

Essex Fire Department has also used their FOCUS data to advocate at the state level. In 2021, Chief Daniel Lynch of the Vermont Fire Academy used data from the Essex Fire Department in meetings with the Vermont State Legislature. This data was influential in passing a bill to establish the Emergency Service Provider Wellness Commission.

To date, the Commission has worked to identify gaps in behavioral health support for first responders throughout the state of Vermont. They have also discovered barriers to recruitment and retention of first responders and have made suggestions for how to address these issues.

Essex Fire Department serves as an example of how leading with data can have a large impact on small volunteer departments and beyond. Because survey enrollment is closing April 25, any departments wanting to take that first step toward improving safety are encouraged to sign up for the FOCUS survey today!

For more information, please contact FIRST Center outreach and communication manager, Victoria Gallogly, at vhg25@drexel.edu.