Why volunteer firefighters drive white fire trucks across Virginia

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, Va. — A statistic that may surprise many is that more than half of the nation’s firefighters are volunteers.

In many areas, these same volunteers serve as the first line of defense during emergencies. In rural areas, some people call firefighters the only ones who go to the scene of a fire.

The small community known as Dolphin in Brunswick County is known not only for its unique name, but also for the distinctive color of its fire trucks.

“Patients, victims or people in a house fire don’t care about the color of the equipment; they just need help,” said Dolphin Volunteer Fire Department Chief Bill Parrish.

The white fire truck has long been a part of the community, serving as a reminder to residents that they are doing the best they can for their community.

Dolphin doesn’t want to spend money on red paint, a common color for fire trucks, because it wants to spend money where it’s needed most.

“When you’re in a poor community, it’s not easy to look at the demographics and look at the data that we have and find out there’s not a lot of funding here,” Parrish said.

The white fire truck was purchased used from Pennsylvania, and the red fire truck was purchased from Long Island, all of which continue to serve the Dolphin community.

“You can’t imagine buying an $800,000 engine. It’s just a basic engine that you have to raise money for, and you’re going to put yourself in a corner to do that,” Parrish said.

Founded in 1977, the department currently responds to more than 150 emergency calls each year. Volunteers say they know they are often protecting family and friends.

“What’s unique here, and what’s unique about most volunteer fire departments, is that when we go out to help our neighbors, we go out to help our neighbors, people we know, people we grew up with, people we know. We’re helping a family that’s in trouble, maybe it’s a family member of ours, we’re going to help them,” Assistant Chief Jonathan Burns said.

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The department works with its members to reduce costs by doing repairs themselves.

“We tend to do the repairs ourselves, but luckily we have people who can handle the equipment and they do the little things that save us $1,000 here and $2,000 here.” Parrish said.

And we use three major fundraisers each year to raise additional funds to cover our expenses.

“We have a big fish fry in May, and then we have a barbecue and then we make Brunswick stew,” Parrish said.

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The ministry also doesn’t want people to misinterpret “rural” or “volunteer” as meaning “less trained” or “less equipped.”

This fire station has it all, with rescue trucks capable of handling 25 to 50 patients in the event of a mass casualty incident.

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“It’s an MCI walk-around kit, designed for gunfights and mass trauma, it has cat tourniquets and hemostatic bandages, it has patient characteristic tags, it has eight of everything,” Parrish said. said.

Red, white or yellow, it’s not the trucks that keep this division going. These are the men and women who are willing to give of their time and risk their lives to keep our communities safe.

Almost 71% of Virginia’s fire departments are volunteers. If you would like to become a volunteer, please contact your local fire department.

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