|
WANTS YOU!
Become a Member Today!
Email: membership@cavespringfire.org
4212 Old Cave Spring Road
Roanoke, Virginia 24018
Mon.-Fri. 6:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M.
Sat-Sun. 8:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M.
Be part of a great organization and help serve your community.
Volunteering with us can be much different than volunteering with most other organizations. First and most importantly, our volunteers become part of a large family. We pride ourselves in providing the best and most professional service possible. In order to provide this level of service, it takes the combined effort of all of our volunteers working together.
Below you will find some common questions and answers about volunteering with us.
- WHAT IS YOUR TYPICAL VOLUNTEER LIKE? We have approximately fifty active volunteers. With that many volunteers, we do not have a “typical” volunteer. We range in age from 16-60 and every one comes with a different skill set and background.
- WHAT IS THE TIME COMMITMENT? Our station has career (paid) staffing Monday-Friday from 6AM-6PM. All other times we are 100% volunteer and we staff the station utilizing duty teams. Each member is assigned to a duty team which is on duty on a once every sixth day rotation. During the week, the hours are 6PM-6AM; on the weekends, the shifts are basically 24 hours. We stay at the station throughout each shift and have facilities to make your time here comfortable. In addition to the duty nights, we have training and business meetings once a month. We encourage each volunteer to do more than just the minimum – duty nights and meetings are the minimum.
- WHAT WILL I GET OUT OF THIS? We try to provide whatever we can to make volunteering here a pleasant experience. Everyone has their own personal reason for joining and staying with our department. While you won’t receive a pay check, most volunteers will tell you this is a great place to learn, meet new people and provides a very rewarding overall experience. In recognition of the amount of time our volunteers spend, we try to give back what we can. We provide meals before our meetings, we have several computers and wireless internet in the station, we provide a gym membership for each member and we have state of the art equipment. More information will be provided during the interview.
- WHAT KIND OF TRAINING WILL I NEED? Most people begin volunteering without prior experience, so don’t worry about that. The State requires every firefighter to take a certification course (Firefighter I) in order to fully participate in fire ground activities. You can expect to take Firefighter I in an academy setting along with a few other ancillary courses. The academy as it’s known is offered by the County once a year at its training Center in Salem. The academy consists of approximately 200 hours of instruction and is held a couple evenings a week and some weekends. We place a high emphasis on training, so you can expect to receive less formal training in the station. We require all new volunteers to complete an initial check off program, which will be explained in greater detail during our interview process.
- HOW MANY CALLS DOES THE STATION RUN? We respond to approximately 1,000 calls per year.
- WHAT TYPE OF CALLS DOES THE STATION RUN? Our run area is very diverse and consists of highly commercialized areas, large subdivisions, several schools as well as open land/wooded areas. The diverse area leads to many different types of calls including structure fires, fire alarms, accidents, brush fires and everything in between. We also run a limited number of EMS assist calls with the Cave Spring Rescue Squad.
- WHAT ARE ALL THE DIFFERENT TRUCKS USED FOR? We have two engines, a ladder truck, a tanker and a brush truck. Due to the widely differing call types and areas in which we operate, we rely on each of these trucks for their varying equipment and capabilities. Part of our initial check-off for each volunteer will cover each truck and all the equipment in detail.
|
