22 Riverheads volunteer firefighters, including chief, walk out

First, the Chief walked out. Then 21 firefighters followed.

The walk-out at a regularly-scheduled meeting at the Riverheads Volunteer Fire Department was due to rising tension between the firefighters and newly-elected president Gerry Chandler, who'd been at the station only about six months when he ran unopposed for the office. He was elected in December and began his role as president in January of 2023.

Benji Smith and Justin Brown are two of the firefighters who followed their chief. Smith's been a firefighter for 13 years. He was the last person to hold the role of president, for four years, before Chandler. Brown's been at Riverheads since 2017. Riverheads Volunteer Fire Chief Barry Lotts was named Virginia Volunteer Fire Chief of the Year in February.

"Everything reached a boiling point, this has been building for months now," Smith wrote in a series of texts to The News Leader.

Chandler's behavior was like "shell-shock for a lot of people," said Brown. "He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way a lot" by trying to take control of all spending decisions from the committees and members, he said. Brown said that Chandler had been asked to resign after a series of decisions in recent months canceled two of the departments' biggest fundraisers while also canceling what was set to be the first banquet for the department since 2017. The August meeting was that boiling point Smith mentioned, when it became clear that Chief Lotts was resigning.

"Knowledge of the chief leaving caused numerous members to also write resignation letters to give last night. The ultimatum was given, if the problem isn’t taken care of we would all walk out.

"The president did not seem surprised and also did not say a word about the members walking out other then all of those who just resigned can now be dismissed."

And with that, they left.

Both Smith and Brown said that most of the firefighters will likely not return until Chandler steps down from the role of president and the department's board is restructured.

Meanwhile, Chandler wrote in response to a News Leader request, "There has been a leadership change at the Riverheads Volunteer Fire Department, Inc.  We want to assure our community that we will continue to provide Fire and EMS services with qualified providers as we always have."

That leadership change could be seen on Monday night as "the chief, assistant chief, both captains, two lieutenants, as well as the vice president" all left the building, Brown said, in an interview with The News Leader.

According to Smith there may be somewhere around 15 firefighters left, "with only half being fully trained in Fire and EMS."

"You just lost 22 very good firefighters," Brown said.

"And of the 22 that quit, seven are also full-time career firefighters locally in the area that loved this job so much we wanted to volunteer to do it as well," Smith wrote. Smith and Brown both work as a career firefighters at Waynesboro Fire Department.

Lotts, reached by email, directed all questions to the Augusta County administrations department.

The real cost of not having trained volunteer firefighters at the ready

Six minutes. That's how long a station has to respond to a call.

A firefighter could be at the Riverheads station, as Smith often was, for 24-hour shifts. In the four-day stretch of consecutive days off that Waynesboro career firefighters get in every nine-day period, Smith may spend three of those days in their entirety, all 24 hours of the day, at the Riverheads station.

A firefighter could be at home. Their pager will beep; they also have an app that lets them know if a call has come in. They make the decision then — can they get to the station in six minutes? Can they respond to the scene in their own vehicle and meet the responding vehicle at the scene and lend assistance?

With nearly 60% of the firefighting staff gone, including operational leadership, response — and the quality of response, Smith noted — is likely to suffer. Smith mentioned that typically 2-4 trained first responders answer to an EMS call, and for fire calls it is typical that 4-15 members would respond.

"If nobody returns to the department I would imagine the numbers will be 1-2 members responding to all calls for service and potentially numerous no responses, and the service provided will be of lesser quality," Smith wrote.

If a fire station does not respond to a call in six minutes, dispatch will check with them one more time and after 30 seconds will move the call to another company. But valuable time can be lost, which can mean damage to property and danger to life and limb. 'No response' calls are a regular metric which volunteer companies try to keep as low as possible.

As news of the events at Riverheads spread, people began asking who would help them in the case of an emergency.

The Raphine Volunteer Fire Department posted on Facebook, in response the walkout at Riverheads, "We want our people (Raphine/Spottswood/Greenville to almo chapel rd) to know that they will NOT be affected."

The department's post said that Raphine is still the first due company for those locations and qualified people will respond to emergencies.

Why the volunteer fire departments mean so much to the career firefighters

"A majority of the career firefighters in this area started as volunteers and got their training through the volunteer department," Smith wrote, "and then were hired for a career position. And no firefighter wants to abandon the place that helped mold them to the firefighter they are today."

Brown, who started his firefighting journey in 2015 with EMT training at the Stuarts Draft volunteer company, said, "You kind of always help out your volunteer house."

Firefighters say bylaws were ignored

Both Smith and Brown said that the department's bylaws were ignored by Chandler as he unilaterally made decisions since January, including initially choosing a venue for the banquet and putting money down for it without authority to do so. Chandler also made up his own rules for adding members to the board, which includes four at-large community members, all of whom were chosen by Chandler, ignoring input from the Chief, they said. When members asked to receive copies of the bylaws, they were not given them.

The News Leader requested a copy of the by-laws from both Chandler and Lotts and have not received a response at the time of publication. Smith said he had copies of the bylaws but they were removed from his locker.

The Augusta County Government Facebook page included the following release:

"As many in the Riverheads community have now heard, several members of the Riverheads Volunteer Fire Department resigned last night due to conflict with their administrative board. As expected, citizens are concerned about fire and EMS coverage available after an event such as this. County leadership has met with Riverheads Volunteer Fire Department Board members to discuss the plan for adequate coverage for the citizens of the Riverheads community. Augusta County Fire and Rescue staff have always and will continue to cover EMS responses. Riverheads Volunteer Fire Department will continue to respond to fire and EMS calls in the community with the members that remain within the department. Augusta County will continue to work with the Riverheads Volunteer Fire Department and is committed to ensuring that all calls are covered to ensure the safety of our citizens."

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: 22 volunteer firefighters, including chief, walk out over Riverheads dept. president's actions