Firefighter shortage growing in West TN area

HUMBOLDT, Tenn. — Being short staffed at work is a challenge everywhere, but even more so for first responders and emergency personnel.

“We believe it’s getting to be a shortage of firefighters,” Humboldt Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Leroy Kail said. “We just have people who don’t really want to be firefighters like they used to be. Used to, we had an overflow of applications, took applications, and now we ‘re lucky we get three or four at a time.”

The Humboldt Fire Department isn’t the only agency in the area struggling to fill positions. It’s happening in towns all across West Tennessee.

Kail says it’s not just full-time employees, but also volunteers.

“It may be that they just don’t want to do the public service life that people do,” Kail said. “People would come around and work at a place for 30, 35 years and retire, and nowadays they’ll come in and get some training and go from here to somewhere else.”

No matter the reasons, it’s hard on the departments.

Assistant Chief Kail says they are six people short, which could affect the ability to fight fires.

“It puts us short when we go on a scene. We’re supposed to have enough people on the scene to take care of what we’re going to take care of,” Kail said. “Sometimes it makes it harder to fight a fire, especially a bigger fire.”

Kail says staffing hasn’t always been short. At capacity, the Humboldt Fire Department has a full staff of 24.

“Used to we could be able to take it on a shift,” Kail said. “Nowadays we have to, with a big enough fire, call for help. We call in our people here first, and then we go into the county.”

Joining the Humboldt Fire Department is simple.

“We like to have people that are certified, but if you’re not certified, we’ll train you,” Kail said. “So we’re taking applications right now, and so if you want to put an application in, we’ll be glad to look at it, and we’ve got some testing we’ll do and go from there.”

Milan and Trenton fire departments are also looking for more firefighters to join their crews.