In the caveman days, man learned how to make fire. It probably wasn't too long after that man discovered the need for fire departments.
Fire departments are not a catchy, new trend. The earliest fire departments in recorded history date back around 2,000 years to ancient Roman times when men would fight fires by passing buckets of water using a human chain.
We're slightly more advanced now, although our method for funding our volunteer fire departments in Warren County is something that's outdated.
"We're still in the stone age," Harrison Ferry Volunteer Fire Chief Lynn Curtis told me Thursday morning. "We're volunteering our time to serve our community and help people when they need it most, and we're having to beg for funding. It's an awful system."
Punctuating the problem is the fact Harrison Ferry didn't have an operational firetruck Thursday morning. Chief Curtis was in the process of getting one of the firetrucks repaired and said he would have to pay for repairs out of his own pocket because the fire department has no money.
The county currently gives each of its seven volunteer fire departments $3,000 a year. That's the extent of county funding.
To make ends meet, the volunteer fire departments ask residents in their coverage area to pay an annual subscription fee. In the Harrison Ferry area, that fee is $50. Curtis says 330 residents are in the coverage area, which would amount to $16,500 if dues were paid by 100 percent of residents.
"Combined with the county's $3,000, that would give us nearly $20,000 a year and that's enough to run this department," said Curtis. "But as it stands now, we're at about 25 percent participation with people paying their membership dues and that doesn't cut it."
Since civilizations all the way back to the ancient Romans have seen the need for fire departments, it seems short-sighted the county's seven departments are funded on what amounts to a voluntary donation.
Several ideas have been floated over the years on ways this could change and many of them are worth considering. It's been said a $5 fee could be added to the annual wheel tax, a fee that's much less than the $50 annual membership fee Harrison Ferry requests even if you have multiple vehicles.
It's also been mentioned to add a small surcharge to electric bills, or a fire surcharge to phone bills, which is the way the 911 center gets some of its funding.
The Standard has done stories on our volunteer fire departments and their scavenger hunt for funding many times over the past decade. As long as these fire departments are forced to rely on voluntary donations that are barely ever paid, there will continue to be problems.
If the county wants to fix what has been a recurring problem, it will have to modify its funding mechanism. We're much smarter than cavemen. Fire department membership dues need to be a requirement, not a donation that can be dismissed.
Standard editor James Clark can be reached at 473-2191.