Bloomington Fire Department is being stretched very thin as it only has 99.
Fire Chief Ulie Seal told WCCO: "Basically, we're trying to run an operation with a third of our workforce not present."
When it's considered fully staff, there are 150-155 firefighters ready to respond, he noted.
"We've never been this low. We've never been below 100. We used to think things were significantly impacted when we were around 120 or 125."
"Our chief officers are filling in on crews, for structure fires. We struggle to get trucks out with enough people on them, or in some cases struggle to get some trucks out at all," Seal said.
"Some of us are pitching in working extra hours on top of our full-time job," Firefighter Leon Chambers said.
Bloomington is ready to hire 18 full-time firefighters.
"Across the country the numbers are down. More and more departments are struggling to get adequate staffing and you can see that just from around the metro area here," Seal said. "More and more fire departments are hiring career firefighters to fill that void."
