Many rural fire districts field a significant volunteer force, which yields a high degree of cost effectiveness for fire suppression and emergency services.

The paragraph below is from the Arizona Fire District Association.

Many rural fire districts field a significant volunteer force, which yields a high degree of cost effectiveness for fire suppression and emergency services. They fill a need that otherwise cannot be generally provided by another governmental entity.

It's obvious to most Dolan Springs and Meadview need volunteers. It's how we motivate and retain volunteers that will make or break a volunteer program.

To me training volunteers to the level they're comfortable with makes sense. Why force someone who would be great at driving the ambulance, to take hundreds of hours of training to be a firefighter or EMT, they have no interest in, and won't do well at?

We need volunteers but to keep volunteers invested, you need to use them. We need CERT people trained to handle traffic. Like at the church fires, I directed traffic until my flashlight went dead.

Someone needs to support the firefighters on any working fire. When it's 105 degrees, you can't work long in bunkers. We need CERT to do things like setup a cooling station, make sure they have cold water, and don't go down from heat stroke.

We need to come together as a community, show people Dolan Springs does care and volunteer. The other choice is the way we are, because consolation won't change that.

We need people who are willing to volunteer as an Ambulance Attendant, no EMT or paramedic, just take an emergency vehicle operations course to be able to drive the ambulance.

ARS 36-2201 #6 (b) An emergency medical responder who is employed by an ambulance service operating under section 36-2202 and whose primary responsibility is the driving of an ambulance.

We need others interested in being an EMT Basic and advancing to EMT Advanced. This would give anyone a big hand up on their way to being an RN, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant, or even a physician.

When an RN gets out of school, they know little more than book knowledge. When a paramedic gets out of RN school, they're an experienced critical care RN paramedic with a career, and service to their community.

If you want to volunteer for CERT Training, as a volunteer firefighter, or for the ambulance, let someone know.

Or stick our heads back in the desert sand.....