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Fire chief weighs progress, challenges
McCOOK, Neb. - With almost 36 years under his belt at the McCook Fire Department, Fire Chief Marc Harpham has seen a lot of changes. While many of those changes have been positive, such as a drastically lowered Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating, he’s also seen a decline in volunteer firefighters and ambulance service personnel.
The ISO rating is calculated by a representative observing how well supplied the department is in regards to their vehicles and equipment, as well as the response times, dispatching, staffing and training. How fast and how well they respond to a situation matters. This rating, the lower the better, directly impacts residential and commercial property insurance premiums.
Nebraska has 478 fire departments, but only 23 departments are a combination of paid and volunteer firefighters. Harpham said his department has 11 full-time, paid firefighters and 20 volunteers. There are four volunteer EMTs and one volunteer paramedic.
“Recruitment is a challenge, but it’s a national thing,” Harpham said. “When I’m out busting my butt on a call and making money and somebody beside me is doing it for nothing, that says a lot. It takes a lot to do that, and we’re just running out of those people.”
The fire chief believes there are several factors causing the shortage of help across the country. McCook’s issue with the deficit, Harpham said, partially stems from 11 paid personnel and 20 volunteers walking off the job in 1984 in the wake of a labor dispute.
Necessary staffing adjustments were made. Four new paid staff were hired, and 45 volunteers jumped in to help.
“Since then, the department has slowly been losing volunteers due to the mandatory requirements, which have changed due to liability,” said Harpham. “Classes are longer, more things are being taught; pass this test and then pass that test.”
Increasing the continuing education requirements and busy schedules also tend to be obstacles. Harpham noted that there are people in the community who would make great additions to the McCook service, but time is their enemy.
“They’re married with kids and have two jobs in order to make a living. They don’t have time,” he said.
As for the surrounding communities, many people work out of town during the day and aren’t around to answer calls.
Another issue Harpham said they deal with is an aging workforce and a shortage of younger people to fill the slots. Some have been in service 30 years or more, including Harpham.
“It won’t be very long, and some of us will be getting out of the business, so we want to make sure we’re helping folks go up through the ranks,” he said.
Harpham has been kicking around an idea to help outlying communities with EMT shortages, but he says not everyone likes it, and it might need some tweaking. He suggests what he calls “lessening the load” for those communities.
McCook’s service would respond alongside the EMTs of those communities. The crew of that community would still be able to do their jobs and treat patients, and the McCook service would handle the transport. This would keep the local unit in service where they are needed instead of tying up their ambulance.
The only caveat is that McCook would be collecting the bill for the transport, but Harpham said an arrangement could be worked out where the assisted department would receive a portion of that payment.
A new statewide program in the works would further increase the demand for EMS personnel, but it would also greatly benefit McCook. A grant of over $218 million was given to Nebraska for the Rural Health Transformation Program through President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“We don’t have the people. We’re too busy doing what we’re doing to try to do that,” said Harpham, but added that the importance of such a program to this community will hopefully get people to step up to the demand.
A committee, which Harpham will be a part of, will soon be meeting to look into what Nebraska can do to make its EMS more sustainable. He said more information will be forthcoming, but it will involve a community paramedicine program. Either paramedics or EMTs could possibly do house visits to help with medications, take vitals signs, do safety checks and more.
“A lot of that rests with what the final state project would look like,” he clarified.
McCook has offered the program before, but since insurance doesn’t pay for it, the program ended when the grant money from Community Hospital ran out. Harpham said the program would cut down on some types of calls and would also make the community safer, both benefits of having enough volunteers for the ambulance service.
Aside from saving lives and reducing property loss, another perk of having a well-staffed fire department is a lower ISO rating. In the 1990s, the department’s ISO rating was a seven. Harpham said they have worked very hard through training sessions, staffing and getting well-equipped to get that rating down to a three.
McCook’s emergency services are always taking applications, and Harpham said they are looking for some young and healthy individuals to accept the challenge.
“When you volunteer, you’re volunteering to accept that responsibility. There has to be that drive to want to do something like this. This job is like no other,” he said. “We’re probably the tightest-knit group of guys and gals you can be around because we spend a lot of time together. We get to know each other very well. We’re all here for the same reason.”
The greatest benefit to volunteering is saving lives, and the community appreciates what you do, he said. Harpham invites people to come down and see what it’s all about, including going on a ride-along.