If I’m not mistaken, the Hershey’s chocolate company actually contributes quite a bit to the apparatus funding

@@jasonj48 thanks! It was just something I had heard from one of the older guys.

Where I live the volunteer FD uses two old fire engines one's red and the other is yellow

Same

In Ontario Canada vollunteer departments are municipality funded and are paid, some even have unions. The province also requires volunteers to have nfpa certification.

I live in State College PA. Our FD has a main station and two satellite stations. Pretty amazing equipment too. If it wasn’t for the university students it would be possible to man it though. You have the townies who are long term and the students who are transitory. Each station has bunk house and the students can pretty much live there and save money.

Very under equipped as well as lack of the necessary training here in California (rural / northern cal). My small community has a very small tax base...we do the best we can with what we have, and the very few we have. There are a couple of us who do it professionally and do what we can to pass on our knowledge and experience as best we can. Better to have someone with little experience show up instead of no one.

Okay, I hate to burst your bubble, but Hershey is not a town. It’s a community in a town called Hummelstown.

@@newyorkgaming5283 Hershey is one of the nicest towns I've ever visited

@@newyorkgaming5283 Hummelstown is a borough separate from Hershey, which is a town

Its not black its Hershey brown

@@newyorkgaming5283 @Jason J is correct. Derry Township is the actual municipal authority for Hershey.

The Hershey Trust gives them close to a million dollars a year and they also receive $1 for every car that parks at the parking lot for any Hershey Bears Game, Hershey Park, Concert, or any other Event held at the Giant Arena/Stadium, Hershey Arena, Park, or ZooAmerica-so that’s at least another million dollars a year.

@@fdls59 you are way wrong on that one lol, if you are gonna comment about our Dept atleast provide facts for people. We don’t get a million dollars a year and we definitely don’t get 1$ for every person who parks at the park. We actually get nothing from that, the police Dept is the only one that gets a kick back from that

@@fdls59 We certainly don’t get $1m a year, as nice as that would be

My volunteer Dept would send one truck and be lucky if 4 guys showed up after bed time because 99% of these are false alarms. No one gets any kind of pay, even for calls. So can't blame them for not going.

@@trvman1 no one gets pay here either.

Taco Stacks in the house checking out the fire videos. Love your vids. I'm a curb surfer too!!

Hershey chocolate money

@@gunnlover they actually don’t give us as much as people think they do. We earn a lot thru grants and mailers. Since we don’t have a fire tax we ask for donations to help keep the station in good financial standing. Also we have very talented people who know how to manage money and put it in the right places for us to grow what we have

Roto-ray

I don’t understand the spinning light’s purpose it looks tacky in my opinion

I left 15 years ago and still spend time watching turn outs and fires on KZfaq. It never leaves you. Thanks to all those guys who upload this stuff. Greetings from England where nowadays the UK (On Call/part-time/Retained) fire service is in total disarray. The authorities are slowly reducing the fire cover and fire calls.

@@richardpotter712 Here in the U.S. we've fallen behind in some locations. Much of the country is served by volunteer departments, many of them being unpaid volunteers. I was unpaid. I paid for my own emergency lights and siren to be installed on my car. Working a full time job 50 hours a week that barely paid the bills, I had to quit firefighting because it was too taxing financially. I'd missed work a few times and a day of wages couldn't be afforded. We have a severe shortage of firefighters and I believe that may be a cause.

@@MajorGeneralDiscomfort Hi Ian. In the UK, part time Ffs get paid but a very small amount, really just to keep them in a contract. Like you said, I was self employed and even though we got paid, lost money when attending fire calls against my primary job. When I joined Kent FRS it wasn't about the money but when you look at the commitment and hours the UK FS services wanted, it was impossible to do, even though I loved doing the job. Here in England also have a recruitment crisis, with large areas of England having below minimum fire cover during the day. This could easily be resolved with better pay but that`s too simplistic!

@@richardpotter712 It's a real shame. It's going to take a disaster for our governments to wake up, sadly.

You can take somebody out of the fire department but you can never take the fire department out of somebody

Full time is only necessary when a municipality can’t keep a stable amount of responders to any given call. Since Hershey has so much manpower, we can afford to stay volunteer.

@@jasonj48 I get that, but think about it, would you rather be a part time paid volunteer, or work full time, and Love every day you go to work, full time? Thats what most younger people want. I used to work for Norwest Banks, i hated sitting behind a desk. My 4th Love EMS Paramedic. Three different services, amd i never worked a day in my Life! Two of my services were paid volunteer, the 3rd was a paid regular job! A senior medic, helping train New kids, the way we learned. I try looking back, and i dont think i ever called in sick. I didnt do it for money, but a true Love, for helping others. I'm betting, if you took a vote, 90% would say theyd Love full time Fire. And the Equipment you have, eithe the people are really generous, or you guys are getting some great Granrts. Do you have a chief thats full time? And last, how many Fire calls, and EMS calls do you respond too, per year? A close guess is fine! The other thing, if you went full time, insurance rates would drop for homeowners, because your rating would go up. And population of the city? Last, God Bless, Thank you for your Services, ans thank your families for me also!.... Rick EMTP retired.

@@rickk.2912 I personally believe there is little reason for us to become full time Our department has enough personnel to not warrant switching to paid as we can pretty much always guarantee an engine with a sizable crew even at night. Hershey itself is a somewhat small town with about 25,000 residents and doesn’t need a ton of people to staff the station at all times. Generally, departments around us are fighting to be volunteer, we’re no different. Also, the township benefits from us being volunteer as they would have to either give us the funding we need, or have to give up enough money to pay for full time firefighters. Our chief is not paid, and most of our members have a career outside of firefighting, those that do run in a different paid department. We run around 6-700 fire calls a year, and, due to the PSH medical center, we do not run ems other than lift assist. We have just been reviewed by the ISO so we are still waiting on a rating but currently I believe we are rated ISO Class 4 and could be in for class 3, which is pretty high for a volunteer department.

@@jasonj48 yea, I get that, but your close. I bet if you ran EMS calls also, youd have too. That makes a huge difference. Paramedic Rescue and the number of calls for us, working with 4 different Fire Departments, carrying the Rescue Equipment, and responding to al the Medical calls, we were run ragged! Jason, we Greatly ppreciate yours, and all your members services. I know what its like, and we alove the job. Please tell all your people thanks, i dont live in your state, but id enjoy working with, or for, your Fire Department! The community should be very proud and Greatful for the sevices, and dedication. And keep those younger kids involved. As we get older, sometimes we forget, we need to pass that knowledge on too the younger members. On 9/11/01, they lost 100's, if not thousands of hours, and years in knowledge! Yes, they were all important, but the FDNY doesn't do much in service training. Its OJT, and the knowledge is taught OJT. So they lost a lot that day, besides personnel. Make sure to tell you and your peoples families thank you also! God Bless, stay safe!....

@@rickk.2912 over here you can find many all volunteer stations with more than a dozen apparatus apparatus housed there. My village has only 10k inhabitants and the volunteer FD has 10 units at the station.

Thanks! The reason I was able to take this video was because I was injured at the time, and I wasn’t able to run calls. Unfortunately that means you probably won’t see too many videos from me from this point.

@@jasonj48 well, it is what it is. Tell Chief Leonard Deputy Sonderman Nick Wechsler says hi and can't wait to see you all again

Yup new denalis and a new engine is on order too. Paid in full for the new truck 48. Funds are good in Hershey.

Of course funds are good when your labor force is basically free. Staff that station with career personnel and the station and equipment quality takes a step or two backwards. It’s a pick your poison kind of thing, professional firefighters staffing the station 24/7/365 or volunteer staffing. Not a knock on volunteer firefighters. I was one once myself. Nice looking rigs and a gorgeous station.

@@somewhereabanana6536 we most definitely don’t have a new engine on order! And the chiefs vehicle is the only brand new vehicle

@@somewhereabanana6536 I don’t believe we have an engine on order, it’ll probably be due to be replaced in 4-5 years.

Weird, when I was there Feb 2020 somebody told me the 06 Seagrave and the brush truck we’re getting replaced

25,000

@@austincrawford9898 well, I guess Google was off by a few thousands 🤣

@@luciusvorenus9445 Hershey itself has around 14k residents, Derry Township is closer to 25k, which is what we cover

@@jasonj48 Cool! Thanks for the info!👍 Stay safe!🙂

I don’t think whether or not the rescue has Mars lights on it’s bumper changes it’s visibility, honestly they’re basically cosmetic and just a cool touch

I was only able to record this as I was injured at the time and wasn’t able to respond to calls

I’m recovered and able to run calls, this video was from a couple of months ago

A $7 million +/- reconstruction project about 5 years ago where they demolished everything except the oldest part of the firehouse which became a small department museum. The old firehouse was kind of a hodge podge of several expansions to the building and was basically functionally obsolete for today's fire service. The new firehouse is very impressive! Nothing but the best in Hershey, PA!! They are well supported by the public and local government - as it should be everywhere!

@@chrisbarr1359 the old half of the station is a meeting room on floor 1 and office space on floor 2. There is an antique engine museum room connected to the meeting room

Not a fan of the colors. Red an BLACK.....

@@290wayne I like the colors, I’m not a red and black chevrons fan but the paint is sick

I am a volunteer here. I was injured at the time so I wasn't able to respond.

If staffing is good we’ll send as many pieces as we can fill

It was training night

It's Volunteer Pride that comes from the Heart.

PA has some very nice and big ones

it sure is enormous for US scale no doubt. I live in a village of 10k inhabitants and the volunteer FD has 10 units at their station. The lagrst volunteer FDs I know have 28 units at one station, the largest volunteer FD in my county has 13 apparatus and the largest in the neighbouring county has 25 units

@@EnjoyFirefighting I've always thought if they are that big with that many trucks that it should be a paid dept

@@dallas75241 not here; In fact many towns of e.g. 40 to 50k inhabitants have an all volunteer departments; In the eange up to 100k some of these volunteers have a full-time or part time paid crew as well. In fact also the low call volume wouldn't make sense for the small towns to run a paid department staffed 24-7. But only cities with more than 100k inhabitants are required to run a paid / full-time / career FD or however it might be called elsewhere. To put this in scale: the largest fire station in my state is currently upgraded from I think 57 to 62 truck bays. That massive station covers the entire city area 1st due. But they run only 2000 calls per year, which means an average of 5.sth calls per 24 hrs shift The thing is most departments over here don't have many tiny stations scattered in the area but few and thatfor large stations, with many crew members being assigned to more than one truck at a time, not every apparatus is permanently staffed and crews are cross-trained, so there are no dedicated truck or engine crews which are working on only the respective kind of apparatus

@@EnjoyFirefighting Thanks for the good info

I can’t speak for the other rigs but the rescue was rippin cause they saw me recording

Engine 48-1 is from 2006, Engine 48 and Rescue 48 both from 2011, and our truck is from last year

Love pierce firetrucks

Powercall, our engine and rescue have 6adams and the truck has a whelen one

Dispatch calls for an engine but if we have the manpower then we can send extra resources

@@jasonj48 nice incase it get upgrade to the big one have a full house already there

Hershey Chocolate money

@@gunnlover Hershey actually doesn’t support as much as you might think, but they do send donations

That's because career department have staffing expenses and other budget constraints.

They did, but we had many other donors as well

The roto-ray is a traffic clearance device. It’s pretty eye catching.

Before we adopted the black over red we had a lime color scheme. Black at night looks like, you guessed it, black, though the black strip on our rigs are reflective.

@@jasonj48 I thought Hershey had a cream color with red?

@@owensweetland342 To my knowledge we have never had that color scheme

If Hershey ever runs into a situation where we either don't have enough volunteer responders or it becomes so big that we need full time staffing then maybe, though for the time being I seriously don't see it happening.