MI Departments Struggle with Staffing Shortages

It was just past 11 p.m. when Jake Steichen's crew got the call.

An attached, two-car garage was on fire near Eighth and Cochlin streets. The fire was called in by a neighbor and the home's residents — a family of five with three children — were asleep inside.

Steichen and his lieutenant arrived within a minute, Steichen said. National guidelines recommend four firefighters respond to full-on structure fires, with a minimum set at three.

Steichen and his lieutenant went in with two. Outside Steichen began suppression of the fire. His lieutenant, Eric Jackson, went in for the search-and-rescue.

Jackson's mission wound up being a brush with catastrophe. Steichen remembers seeing the front door of the house combust and explode in response to a gush of water from the engine, just moments after Jackson made it through with the last family member.

"Pretty darn close." That's how Steichen described it.

The house survived and later, Steichen and five other members of the department were awarded for their response to the blaze. Still, there should have been four firefighters in the truck that night. Steichen admits there's an irony there.

"Is it really responsible to tell everybody how dangerous and how close you always are?" Steichen said. "It's hard to illustrate your failures, or things that could have been a failure.

And yet for many local fire departments, safety guidelines can be overridden by short-staffing. But welcome to firefighting in 2022, where the allure of the profession has faded, but the fires, crises, and EMS calls haven't. From Bellaire to Blaire, department chiefs everywhere say they face the same problem: a shortage of firefighters that has made the job riskier for those who ride the engines.

Firefighters say this is one staffing shortage that wasn't a byproduct of the pandemic. It has been years in the making, brought on by benefit cuts enacted in response to the 2007/2008 recession. At the Traverse City Fire Department, where Steichen works, the job doesn't provide medical insurance in retirement anymore — a perk that brought in many young applicants who knew that 25 years of service to the department would yield a lifetime of security.

Ten years ago, firefighter jobs were competitive. Steichen competed against 40 other candidates when he tested for the job. And that was only after months of preparation.

"Right now we're struggling to get a handful of people," Steichen said. "And all throughout the state they're hiring people who aren't even qualified ... they're just getting them before someone else can pick them up because there's such a desperation."

When retirees stop by the department, Steichen said they're "flabbergasted." Staffing levels are the same as when they ran the ladders in the late 1970s, when the department made 400 runs per year.

The Traverse City Fire Department made more than 3,300 runs in 2021.

Currently, the department staffs one out of four fire inspector positions. And when they show up to structure fires, they often lack safety officers, ladders, drivers and crews that can hop out of an engine at a moment's notice.

Steichen said the difference matters. Four years back, the department responded to a 2 a.m. call in which the police described a house aflame with a resident screaming inside. Again, Steichen and his partner arrived as a duo, but Steichen, who'd been driving, had to spend valuable time gearing up. The resident didn't survive.

"Could it have been better, if we had firefighters packed and ready to go? On a few of them, absolutely they would have. It would have made a big difference," Steichen said. "Just that two to three extra minutes is all it takes."

Meanwhile, call frequency has jumped in response to the pandemic. Peninsula Township Fire Department's runs jumped by 19 percent in the past two years. Department Chief Fred Gilstorff said he and his crews — some of whom are part-time or volunteers — responded to 723 calls in 2021, up from 563 the year before.

"It stinks when you're at an emeregency and something needs to be done," Gilstorff said. "You're looking around and you don't have any bodies, you don't have any staff."

And Gilstorff said he worries about being short-staffed at every fire he sees.

City Departments like Traverse City's are all staffed with professional firefighters, but departments in more rural areas often have to do more with fewer resources. Only a few are full-time in Peninsula Township. Others work part-time or on-call.

Gilstorff tries to staff 30 employees. At one point in 2017, the department was down to just 11 across two fire departments on Old Mission Peninsula. In 2021, he has been able to pull that number up to 26.

His full-time employees are on union contracts. The majority of his other employees make between $15 and $16 per hour.

Gilstorff said the loss of generous retirement benefits was one element contributing to declining interest in the job. But pay is a factor, too, and the lifestyle isn't for everyone. Full-time firefighters work 24 hours with 48 hour breaks.

"I think younger folks look at it and think they could do better working for themselves, working in an office, or that a job's not worth risking your life," said Gilstorff. "I can't understand it. It's the best job in the world."

Grand Traverse Metro Fire Chief Pat Parker said his department could use another dozen part-time firefighters. It's easy to staff full-timers, but part-time jobs require just as much training — 50 days worth of classes — and don't offer benefits and job-security at the end of all that homework.

"They're just not there because of the time commitment it takes to be a firefighter," Parker said. In 2010, Parker estimated his department had as many as 80 employees, all of whom were volunteers. "We're down about 40 from our peak."

In more rural Bellaire, the fire department is run entirely by paid-on-call volunteers, an arrangement which is common in Michigan. Just 15 percent of all firefighters are full-time employees like Steichen. Eighty-five percent are part-time, paid-on-call, or work entirely on a volunteer basis.

Bellaire Fire Chief Chuck Schumaker said he filled 25 slots out of a roster of 30. But he's struggling to keep EMTs. Like with GT Metro, a volunteer department can't promise much as a reward for hours and hours of medical training.

"All of the departments out here are the same way," Schumaker said.

Some help is on the way from different forms of government. Several townships have directed American Rescue Plan Act funds toward fire departments.

Meanwhile, state grants are covering the costs for new firefighter trainees enrolled at the Northwest Regional Fire Training Center. The money comes from MiLEAP, which in turn came from the Michigan Department of Labor and Education.

It has been used to cover $1,600 enrollment costs for 25 new firefighters at the center, according to Diane Culver, service center manager with Northwest Michigan Works!

That first cohort will begin classes on March 1, with several future cohorts planned, Culver said.

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