By Grace Jiang
Albany Times Union
ALBANY — When a fire alarm sounds at 2 a.m. in many rural areas of New York, there is no guarantee anyone will answer.
That was the central warning from a coalition of fire officials, including chiefs and commissioners, who gathered with state lawmakers at the Capitol on Wednesday to call for legislation that would allow volunteer fire departments to offer small stipends to their members — a change they say is urgently needed to reverse a deepening staffing crisis across the state.
New York’s volunteer fire service has shrunk from more than 120,000 members in the early 2000s to roughly 70,000 today. The groups that are trying to help stem the decline in volunteers said the crisis is straining response times, forcing some departments to send multiple alerts just to assemble a crew, and in some cases pushing smaller stations to close their doors.
“We can no longer be confident that a fire truck or ambulance will arrive as quickly as the public expects or deserves,” said David Denniston, first vice president of Association of Fire Districts of the State of New York.
Their proposed remedy is to allow departments to pay volunteers a nominal per-call or per-shift stipend, capped below the federal threshold that would reclassify them as paid employees and strip them of certain tax benefits. Similar models are in place in other states. The groups stressed that participation would remain a local option, not a mandate.
Ralph Raymond, second vice president of the association, described the stakes in stark economic terms.
“If we were all paid in New York state, it would be cost prohibitive for somebody to live here,” he said. “The volunteer fire service saves the average taxpayer billions, not millions, but billions of dollars.”
Raymond also described the kind of worker the stipend is meant to attract: a volunteer who already juggles a day job but also needs a part-time shift elsewhere to make ends meet.
“If I could say, I’m going to nominally compensate you, not pay you a full-time salary, come down to the firehouse instead of going to that cleaning job,” he said, “I can still provide the rest of the volunteers.”
Thomas Richardson, a former New York City Fire Department chief who retired in 2023 after more than four decades of service and now serves as a volunteer fire commissioner on Long Island, framed the issue as one of both public safety and firefighter survival.
“If we don’t have enough people on the fire scene to do all the things that need to be done, firefighters’ lives are at risk in addition to the public,” he said.
Assemblyman Joseph Angelino, a former fire chief who still volunteers in his Binghamton-area district at age 66, noted that two fire departments in his Assembly district have closed due to a lack of volunteers. One of the departments was in Chenango County and the other in Broome County, he said.
“I am one of the firefighters who answers the most calls annually,” he said, describing the staffing difficulties. “I’m the only qualified volunteer in my department to drive an 82,000-pound ladder truck.”
Not everyone at Tuesday’s event was aligned. John D’Alessandro, secretary of the Firefighters Association of the State of New York, which represents the rank-and-file volunteers themselves, pushed back on what he called alarmist framing.
“There is no place in New York where somebody will dial 911 and nobody will show up,” he said.
D’Alessandro said the Firefighters Association of the State of New York supports nominal compensation but has long insisted it must be implemented equitably across the state — not just in wealthy Long Island districts that can afford it.
“You wind up having within the fire service the haves versus the have-nots,” he said, warning that better-funded departments would draw volunteers away from neighbors who cannot compete. He called for a dedicated state fund to level the playing field for financially strapped departments.
Roughly 93% of New York’s fire departments rely on volunteers, and those volunteers save the state an estimated $4.7 billion a year compared to the cost of fully paid departments.
D’Alessandro’s broader proposal includes a 14-point plan that goes beyond pay, calling for expanded tax credits, child care assistance, tuition support and modernized training rules.
Ralph Raymond, a vice president with the fire districts association, issued a statement late Wednesday afternoon responding to D’Alessandro’s comments, characterizing them as “non-factual” and “petty distractions based on misinformation.”
“We are dealing in first-hand facts, we are not being alarmists,” Raymond said. “Their response shifts focus away from the critical issue at hand — ensuring the highest level of public safety for the people of New York state. Public safety must remain the top priority in this discussion, above any organizational or internal considerations.”
Bruce Heberer, chief executive of the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs, said the problem extends beyond fire suppression.
“This is not just a fire service problem. This is a public safety problem,” he said. “Police, fire, EMS, we need to step up.”
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