
A person encased in an orange rescue basket is eased out from under the railing of a fourth-story balcony. As it dangles in the wind, firefighter recruits lower the basket down the side of a Corvallis fire training tower. Other recruits watching from above count the stories the body passes. Slowly, the firefighter acting as the victim in the training reaches the rough asphalt and safety.
Officials hope these recruits-in-training will reinforce a department that’s stretched thin.
The amount of calls that the Corvallis Fire Department responds to has gone up 87% since 2000, yet the department has been answering them with the same amount of staff it had in the 1990s, according to Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Fulsher.
In February, the city approved an $8 increase to the fire public service fee, which allowed the department to hire nine new staffers.
Fire officials say the new hires will help relieve staffing issues and provide enough firefighters to run another ambulance once they are done with training later this year.
For years, the department has only been able to send either a fire engine or an ambulance to an emergency call, as it doesn’t have enough people to staff both vehicles.
The department has seen a decline in applicants over the past decades and a jump in resignations over the past few years. Fulsher pointed to the stress and workload during the pandemic and said some firefighters left for other departments.
“It’s part of employee health to get more staffing so that we’re not just burning people out because they’re on so many calls and they don’t sleep,” said Shawn Morgan, division chief of training at Corvallis Fire Department.
Jim Trierweiler, fire chief for the Mt. Angel Fire District, said many fire departments face issues with staffing.
Most departments prefer firefighters to be paramedics and there has been a “big downturn” in paramedics entering the workforce, he said. Oregon requires paramedics to have an associate degree which has “absolutely become a major barrier,” Trierweiler said, adding that departments are stealing staff from one another.
Fulsher said Corvallis was lucky to hire nine new recruits who nearly all will be paramedics once they finish their fire training. Roughly 80% of the department’s calls are for emergency medical services, he said, making firefighters the frontline of health care for the community.
Samantha Schmeusser sipped from a water bottle on a recent training day with the department, wearing a banana yellow hard hat and a bright red Corvallis Fire shirt as she waited for her turn to portray the victim in a rescue exercise.
Schmeusser is the only woman of the nine new recruits hired from the fee increase. She was initially interested in the medical field when a friend suggested giving firefighting a shot. She fell in love on the first day.
“Yeah, it’s hard, and yeah you have to push yourself, but that kind of makes you want to come back for more,” Schmeusser, 23, said.
Schmeusser acknowledged that there are still some fire departments with old-fashioned ideas about women, but for her the Corvallis department feels like a second family.
“Showing up to work, it doesn’t feel like you’re showing up to work,” she said, adding that it feels like she’s hanging out with friends every day.
Gabe Gurule, president of the Corvallis Professional Firefighters Local 2240 union, believes hiring the new staff is a step in the right direction, but not enough to solve staffing issues completely. Currently, the Corvallis Fire Department is below the national average in firefighters per capita, city documents show. To meet this standard, the department would likely need to hire at least 12 more people, Fulsher estimated.
“That would be a pretty big win for us as workers, but also I think for the community as well, just in terms of the service that we would be able to provide,” Gurule said.
To some, the $12 monthly fire public service fee seems like a small amount to pay. But for others, “any additional fee can be really hard” while still getting food on the table, said Emily Reiman, CEO of DevNW, a nonprofit which helps low-income families. City fees are an imperfect system, she said.
“I think a lot of low-income families are trying to hold both things,” she said. “They’re watching every dollar but they also recognize the benefit of community services.”
This story was produced by student reporters as part of the High School Journalism Institute, an annual collaboration among The Oregonian/OregonLive, Oregon State University and other Oregon media organizations. For more information or to support the program, go to oregonlive.com/hsji.
– Alexandra Difani, Henley High School
– Supattra Namnon, St. Mary’s Academy
This story was produced by student reporters as part of the High School Journalism Institute, an annual collaboration among The Oregonian/OregonLive, Oregon State University and other Oregon media organizations. For more information or to support the program, go to oregonlive.com/hsji.