Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Keith Bolte, Blacksburg volunteer fire chief, squeezes through two response units that are angled toward the same bay door in the department’s Station 2 on Prices fork Road in Blacksburg. The department has plans to build a new fire station (as seen in drawing below) with offices and efficiency apartments for its volunteers at the intersection of Airport and Hubbard streets in Blacksburg.

Funding sources at a glance

The Blacksburg Fire Department receives operating and building funds from Blacksburg Town Council, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and Virginia Tech. Funding streams can vary from year to year.

• Virginia Tech: $116,000 annually
• Town: $210,000 annually
• County: $70,000 annually

South end station building fund so far

• Town: $900,000
• County: $250,000
• Virginia Tech: Providing the land
• Town has asked the county to provide an additional $300,000

  SOURCE: Town of Blacksburg

Fire Department milestones

• 2008: Construction scheduled for new 16,313-square-foot station at Hubbard Street and Airport Road.
• 1986: Prices Fork station built.
• 1957: First fire house built on Progress Street; used today by both the fire department and rescue squad.
• 1922: BFD founded; only equipment available was a hand-pulled 1892 model American LaFrance Ladder Wagon donated by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, now Virginia Tech.

SOURCE: Blacksburg Fire Department

Want to help?

• Donations to help build the new fire station should be made out the Blacksburg Fire Department building fund and sent to: 2700 Prices Fork Road,Blacksburg, VA 24060. For more information, call 961-1175.

BLACKSBURG -- When it's built, Chief Keith Bolte hopes a new fire station planned for the town's south end will not only be a place to store pumper and ladder trucks, but also will eventually help attract more volunteer firefighters.

The new station is planned for a spot on the Virginia Tech/Montgomery Executive Airport grounds at Airport Road and Hubbard Street and could be ready to store fire equipment sometime next year, if enough money comes through. The department needs $1.4 million to build phase one of the new station that includes the shell of the building and garages for fire trucks. Phases two and three would include administrative offices, a community meeting room and hoped-for apartments and together cost about $700,000, Bolte said.

So far, the department has raised about $1.1 million for phase one. The Blacksburg Town Council has asked the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors to cover the $300,000 shortfall.

Eventually, Bolte said, apartments could be added to the upstairs and offered to students who come to Virginia Tech already certified as volunteer firefighters.

"This building is critical for us," the chief said. "I want to stay all-volunteer as long as possible, but we just don't have a good scenario right now."

The department now operates out of two buildings in town, one on Progress Street and another on Prices Fork Road. Together those buildings total 19,277 square feet, not enough room for trucks and gear and about 45 volunteers that handle 1,100 fire-related calls a year across Blacksburg, the Virginia Tech campus and parts of Montgomery County.

Space is so tight that two of the department's pumper trucks must be stored at the Blacksburg Transit garage, Bolte said. Besides space, though, there is a more serious problem -- keeping enough volunteers on staff to respond to routine calls, especially on weekdays. That's why integrating more Tech students into the department is so important, Bolte said.

It's a strategy more and more fire departments, especially those in college towns, are using to keep their departments volunteer, said Tim Wall of the International Association of Fire Chiefs in Fairfax.

"I compliment the Blacksburg chief for thinking outside the box," Wall said.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, there are close to 800,000 volunteer firefighters serving communities across the United States. That's down from an estimated 880,000 volunteers in the mid-1980s and means that many departments are stretched thin. Studies suggest that those volunteers save taxpayers a combined $37 billion per year, and paying to replace them could pose significant problems for local governments.

Despite the downward trend in volunteers, 73 percent of all the country's fire departments remain all-volunteer.

There are many reasons for the decline in volunteers, according to Wall. Some departments may lack funds for training or equipment that could draw more recruits. Other departments may need to implement more aggressive recruiting plans, he said.

Bolte attributes the Blacksburg shortage to changes in societal values. As workplace demands have increased, community service seems to have eroded to some extent, the Blacksburg fire chief said.

Volunteer fire departments will never disappear, according to Wall. But more and more departments may be forced hire some paid firefighters to supplement their volunteer staffs, and to convert to what are called "combination" departments, Wall said. Wall serves as chief of a combination department in Wallingford, Conn.

While the Blacksburg department has two paid fire inspectors who sometimes respond to calls, using student volunteers to run a certain number of fire calls per month in exchange for room and board is the best way Bolte said he has found to fill the gaps. It could take years to implement that solution, however. The problem is money.

Bolte said the department is also trying to raise some private contributions to supplement the public funding for the new station. Building a new facility that could attract more volunteers makes financial sense, the chief said. He estimates volunteer firefighters save the town at least $1 million a year.