(NewsNation) — If your house catches on fire, there’s a good chance the person coming to help is a volunteer.

More than 85% of the nation’s fire departments are made up entirely or mostly of volunteers, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. But in recent years, many of those same departments have struggled to find staff.

In 2020, there were 676,900 volunteer firefighters in the U.S. — down from 897,750 in 1984. At the same time, calls to fire departments have more than tripled.

In Pennsylvania, where 90% of departments are entirely volunteer, the number of volunteer firefighters has shrunk from 300,000 in the 1970s to 38,000 in 2018, according to a state legislative report.

On the other side of the country, in Oregon, 73% of chiefs in a recent survey reported a moderate or significant decrease in the number of volunteer firefighters in their departments over the past five years.

Steve Hirsch, chairman of the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), said there’s no “cookie-cutter” solution that will fix the problem entirely. Instead, he emphasized a multifaceted approach focused on building awareness, highlighting the benefits and finding new ways to recruit and retain volunteers.

“If people want something to be rewarding in their life, this is that,” said Hirsch, who has worked as a volunteer firefighter in rural Kansas for over 36 years.

NewsNation spoke with Hirsch about the recruiting challenges and what’s behind them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

NewsNation: What’s driving the decline in volunteers, and why are smaller, rural communities more impacted?

Hirsch: I think there’s a number of reasons why [departments] have a difficult time recruiting. Sometimes we don’t let our own community know that we need volunteers, and we have to get better at that.

Today, because Mom and Dad both have jobs, the time constraints become a little more difficult, both to train and to be able to respond. If you’re a couple with three kids, chances are you’re at school every day of the week with various events that they might be involved in.

The reality is in a lot of our smaller communities, sometimes there just are no young people left. They’ve all gotten older, perhaps there are no jobs in the community. So they’re driving to another community to get work. And so I think there’s a variety of factors. Some of them are societal and some of them are just economic reality.

NewsNation: What are the real-world implications if there aren’t enough volunteer firefighters?

Hirsch: From a civilian standpoint, if it’s going to take an hour for a fire truck to get to you, if it’s going to take 30 minutes for an ambulance to get to you and you’re having a heart attack, or it’s going to take 45 minutes for a rescue squad to get there — that becomes a big issue. And those kinds of things are happening.

It becomes a safety issue for our volunteer firefighters too because you need a lot of people when you’re having these incidents go on — it’s a team sport. If you’re not well-staffed, that can be a safety issue for us.

NewsNation: Why have calls gone up so dramatically?

Hirsch: [Fire departments] are all-hazard agencies now. When my father started the fire district 60 years ago in the community I grew up in, the only thing that they did was respond if something was on fire. They’d go put it out with water. But today, it’s more than just fires.

It’s going out and storm spotting, making sure that the community is advised in advance when storms are coming. It’s the high-angle, swiftwater, confined space, and low-angle rescues that fire departments are doing.

The majority of the volunteer fire departments in this nation will be providing EMS service, and that’s where the call volume numbers are being driven, it’s not fires. In some of these departments, three-fourths, or sometimes even more, will be EMS calls.

NewsNation: Do we know why young people aren’t signing up in some communities like they used to? Is there just less of a sense of civic duty today?

Hirsch: I don’t believe it’s because they don’t want to volunteer. I think it’s because we haven’t recruited there.

You’ve got to be able to connect with young people in order to get them there, and then, you can’t waste their time when they get there. You’ve got to provide them with quality training and education. And, quite frankly, make them feel like they’re part of a family and how much you value them over the million dollars worth of equipment.

NewsNation: If someone reading this wants to get involved, what can they do?

Hirsch: Try and figure out whether or not your local fire department or EMS agency is volunteer and go visit with them. The National Volunteer Fire Council has a website here. If folks want to volunteer, then all they have to do is type in their zip code, and they’ll be connected with a fire department in their area that’s looking for help. So it’s easy to do.

I think they will find it’s the most rewarding opportunity that they will ever have in their life to be able to make a difference, to be able to bring hope to people who have no hope because they’re living their worst possible day.