{"content":[{"text":"The Aurora Volunteer Fire Department Needs Volunteers to Continue","bbox":{"left":0.123366,"top":0.095455,"width":0.752638,"height":0.020201999999999998}},{"text":"Let me introduce myself. I am the current chief of the Aurora Volunteer Fire \n Department, which contracts with the towns of Amherst, Aurora and Great Pond to provide \n emergency response services. I was a game warden in the area for 30 years, so I am familiar \n with emergency response from the law enforcement side, but when I started with the \n Department, I knew nothing about fires and firefighting. Since then, I have trained to be an \n Emergency Medical Responder and went to the Hancock County Fire Academy to earn a \n Firefighter I and II. I’ve taken many courses, learned much from the Bureau of Labor and other \n sources to try to be a good chief. It has taken me about 2 years to learn the basics of running a \n small fire and EMS department and bring the department more or less into compliance with \n Bureau of Labor regulations.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.1375,"width":0.755451,"height":0.181566}},{"text":"It’s been a challenge, and the towns have assisted by providing a slightly higher budget \n for us to work with, but now we face a personnel shortage that can’t be solved by asking for \n more funding or donations.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.340909,"width":0.749332,"height":0.052147}},{"text":"The department has been able to continue through the years because of a faithful core \n group of volunteers who just would not give up on the idea of helping their communities. The \n problem is that these core people are aging and unable to do the “heavy lifting” needed at \n some calls. Many of these members cannot leave work during the day, so we have very few \n people available to respond during work hours.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.414899,"width":0.750854,"height":0.08914200000000005}},{"text":"The department responds to about 60 emergency calls a year. Most involve local \n residents with medical issues, traffic accidents, storm related wire and tree damage and other \n problems, many of which don’t amount to a lot of strenuous work and may require an hour’s \n response time, sometimes more if we have to divert traffic for extended periods. Often only a \n few people are required. We have about a half dozen “fire” calls a year which require multiple \n people and sometimes hours of hard work. It is the prospect of these calls that keeps me up \n nights worrying because we don’t have the people to manage them.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.525884,"width":0.748765,"height":0.12613700000000005}},{"text":"It takes someone who is physically able to handle heavy extrication equipment to cut \n someone out of a crashed or overturned vehicle. It takes physically fit people to haul hose \n lines, raise large ladders and fight fires. It takes someone who is willing to take the time to train \n to fight fires and get up in the middle of the night to respond.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.673864,"width":0.7626350000000001,"height":0.07070700000000008}},{"text":"I am making an appeal to the residents of Amherst, Aurora, Great Pond and Osborn for \n volunteers to help with our fire departments. We need help with traffic control, firefighting, \n tree removal, scene control, building maintenance, information technology, computers, vehicle \n driving, vehicle repair, bookkeeping, selling unused equipment, filing, record keeping, cooking \n for events, building and vehicle cleaning and many jobs that don’t require having to fight fires \n or getting up in the middle of the night. Being a member means you need to take about 3 \n hours of Bureau of Labor required initial training which we are setting up to be done online, and","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.766414,"width":0.7631060000000001,"height":0.12613700000000005}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}