The program was established in July of 2025, with five trained firefighters, with room to grow into a total of six firefighters. The program began off site from the firehouse with plans to bring it inside the station once renovations can be made to the station to accommodate the program inside the station.

The purpose of the program is to move properly trained individuals who may not live within a ten minutes’ drive of the firehouse to less than a few minutes away from the station. It also allows for the company to recruit a broader group of potential candidates who are trained, and willing to volunteer in a station that often responds to greater than 1,000-1,100 calls a year.

Are you thinking about applying for live-in membership? Below are listed some of the requirements for the live-in’s

• Must be a full-time employee, or a full-time student.
• 120 hours of duty a month.
• Minimum Training Requirements to be considered for the program.
  • Firefighter I (And its pre-requisites)
• Continual Training Requirements.
  • Must take at least 8 hours of certifiable training a year.
    • Examples include VDFP hosted classes listed here, other options not listed at the link include EMT, EMT-A, EMT-P, and other fire training options including Mayday Operations, Rural Water Supply, Basic Pump Operations, and others.

What was the timeline on creating the program?

• In the late 2000’s a live-in program was briefly considered by the company.
• During 2020 the live in program was again reviewed as a potential option prior to the company selling a house that had been purchased around the time the original project was considered in the late 2000’s.
  • It was decided due to varying factors including an active pandemic and the costs of renovations to the aging house to sell the house during the rising housing market. The priority was to put time and effort into determining needed station renovations, that culminated in the results below.
• During 2023, and 2024, extensive efforts by members and local contractors were put into exploring the costs of replacing the single-story firehouse with a structure that would allow for both the program to exist within the station and future growth of the company.
  • One option was to spend about $500,000 in repairs to the existing structure, this was not supported for two reasons.
    • The existing structure had been constructed in many phases since the 1950’s and no expansion joints had been placed between those phases of construction; over time this has created structural integrity concerns.
    • Secondly, we wanted to add more bay space to allow for in station apparatus maintenance, in station training facilities, as well as extensively explore the possibility of putting a rentable space on the first floor of the building.
  • One option was to spend several million on a two-story structure.
    • We choose to hold that project in planning to allow for fundraising efforts to commence, prior to construction beginning.

What does the future of the program look like?

• Continued delivery of a higher level of service to our community with quicker response times.
• Expansion to greater than six firefighters once the station can be modified to accommodate them.