HUMMELSTOWN, Pa. — First responders put their lives on the line every day. They’re the first to arrive at an emergency scene, going into the unknown and putting others before themselves.
But, the number of heads responding to a call is decreasing.
Volunteerism isn’t as high as it once was. One fire department tries to get young adults involved earlier with a junior firefighter program.
It’s a similar trend around many volunteer firehouses – numbers are down and have continued to decrease, but there’s one thing Hummelstown Chemical Fire Company takes pride in, their junior firefighter program.
Kids can join the fire department as young as 14 but can’t become an actual firefighter until they reach 18 years old.
“We do have a good turnaround of guys, we have a good set of gear up here for all of our guys but we need to still keep going or we’re not going to have the volunteerism. So, getting the younger kids in here. Learning what we’re doing. Showing them what we’re doing. Hopefully, they’ll stick with it and move up to where we are," said David Deal, the Hummelstown Chemical Fire Battalion Chief.
The department has seven young adults in this program but there’s something very unique about this group. They all are related to or have a family member in the fire department.
“They’ve grown up around the firehouse and learned what goes on. They’ve stepped up and want to go through and fulfill the same roles their parents did. With the decreasing numbers in the fire service, this is something that we need to see, more and more. It gives them a sense of worth to learn what it takes to be a firefighter," said Rich Fanning, Jr., Hummelstown assistant fire chief and junior coordinator.
One family keeps the tradition going, keeping it in the family business.
“I don’t want to see fire calls but when we do go on a call together. It’s kind of cool seeing that I have family with me," said Deal said.
Tytan Deal, 14, is a fifth-generation firefighter and is currently in the junior firefighter program.
“[I do it] to help the community and my family did it my whole life so I want to follow in their footsteps. It feels like I’m doing something worth my time and not just wasting my life," explained Tytan.
The junior firefighters can only go on fire calls and have to stay outside the scene, but that’s where some of the most important work needs to be done; assisting the crew so they can keep putting their effort towards the fire.
“We can only run until 10 p.m. but we can get hoses, tools for the firefighters, pull lines, hit hydrants. We [just] can’t go inside or near the house," Tytan said.
“Rolling hose, helping stretch the hose, throwing ladders, getting traffic controlled, changing air cylinders is huge and if they’re not here to do it. We have to do it, the senior members have to do it. So, it takes time out of us to do it. Or we could just come out, almost like a pitstop. Firefighters can come out, get their air cylinder changed really quick and we can go right back into the fire," added Fanning, Jr.
They train every other week and get extra training by joining the seniors every Monday evening.
It’s not just the fire components, they need to be ready for anything in the field, even a medical emergency to one of their own.
To keep anything going, the most important part is the next generation.
That’s not all for this story. Three of the junior firefighters are racers. Two of them are part of a program that helps get their name in the national spotlight.