In Charente-Maritime, firefighters lack volunteers and more particularly during the week, during normal working hours. The Department has decided to appeal to the mayors to alleviate the staff shortages. How? ‘Or’ What ? By encouraging them to hire officials likely to leave their posts at the first alert… These agents “might join a community and then be made available to Sdis, the departmental fire and rescue service. We are going to meet elected officials, encourage them to recruit, ”summarizes Stéphane Villain, its president.
He gave himself three years to build a “Marshall Plan” and find out how to convince the communities. “Aid might be allocated to those who play the game,” says this elected official, also mayor of Châtelaillon-Plage. “With us, we employ two volunteer firefighters, it is well seen and it is a plus on the CV”, estimates Stéphane Villain.
The mayor of Gémozac, Loïc Girard, also employs volunteers: “We have four in the technical services for a total of 11 agents. My manager sometimes tears his hair out! As the Department’s first vice-president, he defends this appeal to mayors and the hiring of civil servants that used to be very common.
He even took out his calculator: volunteering “costs the municipality 5,000 euros per year and per agent. We continue to pay them when they are in intervention. But hiring a professional firefighter costs the Department up to 50,000 euros ”. Charente-Maritime has just increased the Sdis budget by 5.5% – brought to 36 million euros – to recruit new professional sappers and fill the ranks.
