史蒂文又
NJ.com
(MCT)
Ordinarily, it would not be odd to see fire trucks blaring their horns as they exited the parking lot of the Cedar Brook Volunteer Fire Company to respond to an emergency.
星期一，它大多是安静的。
偶尔的电话会在里面响起，或者可能听到温斯洛镇消防局长马克·里格格（Marc Rigberg）参加培训课程。
下列的社区通知on April 12, the volunteer fire station in Camden County — which had been running since 1925 — stopped deploying firefighters due to low staff levels, officials in the township said.
“It’s not just us,”Rigberg周一下午，在萨基洛维尔车站（Sicklerville Station）行走时，告诉新泽西州的Advance Media，该站仍然是该部门的总部。
“If you were to pick up the phone today, and call any fire chief of a combination of full-time and volunteer or all-volunteer fire department, they’ll say (low staff numbers) is a problem. It’s been a problem,” Rigberg added. ”You’ll get the same answer across the board.”
雪松布鲁克志愿消防公司当时有7名志愿消防员响应行动停止了。所有七人都被送往乡镇的其余五个消防局，该站在60平方英里的地区做出了响应，其中包括乡镇和依靠温斯洛镇服务的切斯利赫斯特的小型自治市镇。
当公司继续重新评估下一步时，里格伯格称关闭为“临时”。他指出，消防部门将需要15名在Sicklerville站的志愿者才能重新开放。
The Winslow Township Fire Department currently has a total of 35 volunteer firefighters and 22 full-time paid firefighters — with another 20 or so administrative staff members. Rigberg said a “minimum of 15 firefighters who are fully active” would be needed at each of the township’s five remaining stations to improve operations.
“We do just under 2,000 calls for service a year and demand is increasing. The community is also continuously growing, both residential and commercial,” Rigberg said.
根据1991年，里格伯格（RigbergU.S. census.去年,人口普查该镇估计约有40,000人居住。
消防队长补充说：“当我加入消防部门时，这里可能有大约120名成员，每个车站都有很多人。”
估计温斯洛镇（Winslow Township）的里格伯格（Rigberg）面临“至少十年”的短缺，这将趋势归因于各个行业面临的人员配备挑战，有兴趣成为消防员的人和Covid-19-19的影响。这位负责人说，在卡姆登县，1990年约有77个消防局，而今天的47个站点说。
里格伯格说，志愿消防员的津贴为六个小时的少量津贴在60至90美元之间。温斯洛镇消防局还涵盖了培训和设备的费用。消防部门派出招聘人员来寻找候选人，在社交媒体上促进空缺，使居民在乡镇会议上提醒居民，并讨论了他们在数十个社区活动中寻找志愿消防员的搜索。
And yet, new prospects are not submitting applications, Rigberg said.
他补充说：“不幸的是，我们可能不得不要求（乡镇）雇用资金来帮助缓解这种担忧，并在这里为我们提供更好的平台以回应紧急情况。”
里格伯格说，很少有志愿消防员申请人的问题不是温斯洛镇所独有的。
根据非营利会员协会的说法国家志愿消防委员会, there were over 884,000 volunteer firefighters across the United States in 1983 (the first year it began tracking the data). In 2018, the most recent year available, that figure was up to 745,000 after hitting an all-time low of 682,600 the year prior.
虽然它认为人员数量较低，但里格格说，温斯洛镇消防局采取了措施确保减少响应时间。
“不要击败或减少任何东西，但是如果有一天垃圾被错过了，他们总是可以在第二天来捡起它。为此，我们有响应时间，我们需要适当的员工才能充当事件团队。”里格伯格说。“这一刻到来时，公众期望提供高水平的服务，因为我们不会在苹果上遇到第二次咬人。”
In addition to having staff on hand, Rigberg said volunteer and full-time firefighters are available to arrive on time to incidents — regardless of where they are in the township.
“I can assure you that all necessary steps have been taken to adjust our response protocols to meet the needs of the community and your safety, and this will be continuously evaluated,” he said to thecommunity in a letterearlier this month.
Winslow Township Mayor Marie Lawrence did not immediately respond for comment.
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史蒂文·罗达斯（Steven Rodas）可以到达srodas@njadvancemedia.com。
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