Consolidate or close: Bensalem moves to save volunteer fire service

With a roll call vote, Bensalem council united six volunteer fire companies into a single department, a move the township called necessary to keep them operational.

“Bensalem just got safer tonight,” Bensalem Director of Public Safety William McVey said following the 4-0 vote Monday with Councilman Joseph Pillieri absent.

Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo echoed the sentiments.

“Safety is the No. 1 thing we swear to,” he said. “By doing this I feel we are going in the right direction.”

Before the vote on the resolution, which took effect at midnight Tuesday, McVey outlined the more than two-year planning process to create a single Bensalem Volunteer Fire Department.

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“This has been a long and arduous process,” said the new department President Andrew Hazlett, who was sworn in Monday along with the other department leadership members and operational chiefs.

The township has previously studied the idea of consolidating fire departments twice before in the 1980s, and again in 2010 when the township implemented a paid week-day firefighter department, McVey said.

This most recent effort started in 2022 with the formation of a consolidation committee made up of members of all the six fire departments, McVey said. It was not an easy road to consolidation, McVey said, but the final committee vote was 156 in favor, six against.

The fire department consolidation was necessary to ensure adequate fire/emergency response within the township to better serve the needs of the Bensalem community.

It was also the only way the township could safely sustain a volunteer company, McVey said, calling the consolidation “overdue.”

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The new consolidated fire department has an estimated 185 members, but only 80 to 100 are active firefighters who can respond to calls, said Tom Markert, the new department vice president.

The significant drop in volunteers meant that at times some firehouses did not have enough staff to respond to fire calls risking delays, McVey said. Fire trucks need a minimum of three certified members to respond, though four is preferred, he said.

Bensalem’s experience with a volunteer drought is not unfamiliar in Pennsylvania, where there are fewer than 40,000 volunteer firefighters compared to 70,000 in the early 2000s, McVey said.

Markert said that he has spent more than half his life as a volunteer with the Eddington Fire Co.  He has seen the drop in volunteers up close.

In 1996, the 50th anniversary of the department, Eddington had 42 certified active firefighters. At the end of last year they had 15, he said.

When he joined the department in 1986, the oldest active members were in their late 40s, Markert said. Today there are members in their 60s responding to calls.

With the decline, more members, like Markert, who is 59, have assumed multiple leadership roles within their respective department, which is unsustainable, he said.

The next steps to finalize the process include consolidation of the separate bank accounts, funding streams and equipment. The department executive board will handle merging of those items, and the township is not involved in that process, McVey said.

Last year Bensalem budgeted $1.7 million divided between the six departments, McVey said. Council is expected to adopt an ordinance later this year that will direct the funds from the six departments to the new department, McVey said.

McVey added the township hopes that the consolidation will maintain the sustainability of its volunteer firefighting ranks, which would prevent the need for a 24/7 paid department, but it could revitalize them.

“The goal is to build it,” he added. “We think it’s going to attract more people rather than competing with each other.”

Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bensalem creates Bucks County's first single volunteer fire department