Volunteer / Station Operations for Ivy Fire | Rescue, Station 15

VOLUNTEER
Volunteers fall into two categories, Active/Associate responders and Committee/Board participants. Additional information may be obtained by contacting:
Albemarle County Fire | Rescue at 434-296-5833

ACTIVE/ASSOCIATE RESPONDERS
As an active or associate responder, qualifications, training and responding roles are identical; your hours per month and commitment to a crew may vary. Interest in volunteering can be from first time applicants to current members of a department within the City, County or Commonwealth of Virginia. With each comes an discussion that is best held by a one-to-one conversation. This can be arranged by contacting the office of the Albemarle County Fire | Rescue or by completing an online application. A member of our volunteer recruitment committee will contact you regarding your interest.

COMMITTEE/BOARD PARTICIPANTS
Committee and/or board participation from the primary response area of the station is essential to meeting the expectations of the community. Ivy Fire | Rescue seeks interest from those living within our response area to fill one of two seats on our Volunteer Recruitment Committee (VRC) as well as five seats for the Ivy Fire | Rescue Advisory Board (AB).

• Volunteer Recruitment Committee
  Interested individuals would assist with initial recruitment and retention of interested applicants for both responders and committee/board positions. Participation would include meeting monthly as well as participation in community meetings to assure the communication of our mission, vision and values established for the station. In addition to these At-Large seats, the board is comprised of the following interests:
  
  • Current chairperson leading volunteer recruitment
    Fire, EMS board representative
    Albemarle County Fire | Rescue senior staff representative
    Albemarle County Human Resource representative
    Additional information can be provided one application has been made

Advisory Board
Until such time as application for Ivy Fire | Rescue Station 15 is filed as a 501 c3 not-for-profit, advisory board members are assisting with operational recommendations from the Albemarle County Fire | Rescue senior staff. Interested individuals would form the basis of a not-for-profit board at such time as the Commonwealth of Virginia approves an application for such status. Additional information regarding being part of the foundation for the stations operations can be discussed once application has been made.

STATION OPERATIONS
The station will open with a single engine company staffed with an officer, driver operator/FF and firefighter, 24 hours per day, seven days a week. The current plan presented and approved by the Fire, EMS board of the County of Albemarle is to provide a career captain and driver operator/FF running as a 24 hours shift model. Monday through Friday between 0600 and 1800 hours the career staff will be supplemented with a career firefighter. Monday through Friday between 1800 and 0600 hours as well as weekends and holidays on a 24 hour basis, volunteers will fill one to three engine positions respective to their Commonwealth of Virginia certifications and release process of Station 15.

To assure cohesion with crews, our intention is to assign volunteers to one of three crews, A, B or C.  At the optimal staffing level of between 25 and 30 volunteers, this will allow each crew to have between 6 and 8 volunteers assigned with a combination of firefighters, EMT’s, driver operators & fire officers as state certified and station released.

Each crew will then be blended between career and released volunteers for 1800 to 0600 Monday through Friday and 24 hours for weekends and holidays.  Volunteers for 24 hour shifts can, with crew captains approval, be split into two 12 hour shifts between two volunteers.  Each active volunteer should expect between 3 and 5 shifts per month dependent upon the month and how holidays fall within the year.  Associate members will be assigned to shifts based on their availability and openings on shifts to meet our minimum staffing.

TRAINING
The next scheduled firefighter 1 class begins on January 2, 2013 with graduation prior to July, 2013.  The class is held at Monticello Fire Rescue, Station 11 and the syllabus can by clicking here.