Executive Summary: Pennsylvania fire departments are facing a critical staffing deficit, with averages (2.29 people per engine) falling nearly 50 percent below the NFPA 1710 safety standard. IAFF Local 735’s Lou Jimenez and Local 507’s Jordan Klein warn that the collapse of volunteerism and stagnant municipal budgets are forcing a transition to career staffing that must be codified in 2026 state legislation to prevent response failures.
On America’s Work Force Union Podcast, two Pennsylvania firefighter union leaders delivered a blunt assessment of public safety in their communities: the equipment is there, the training is there, but the staffing is not.
Bethlehem Firefighters IAFF Local 735 President Lou Jimenez and Hazleton City Firefighters IAFF Local 507 Secretary Jordan Klein joined host Ed “Flash” Ferenc to describe what they say has become normalized across the Commonwealth — running engines and ladder companies with staffing levels that fall well short of nationally recognized benchmarks.
Their warning is not abstract. Jimenez pointed to a deadly assisted living facility fire in Fall River, Mass., where 10 people were killed, and dozens were injured in a five-alarm blaze. In his telling, the tragedy underscored what firefighter unions have argued for years: when staffing is treated as optional, the consequences are measured in lives.
“We want to be preventative, we want to be proactive instead of reactive.” —Lou Jimenez
Firefighter unions have long framed staffing as both a workplace safety issue and a community safety obligation. In the IAFF’s view, safe staffing is not a perk or a bargaining chip. It is the baseline that determines whether firefighters can execute standard tasks — search, rescue, ventilation, water supply, rapid intervention — without gambling with their own lives.
Jimenez anchored the conversation in NFPA 1710, the widely cited standard that sets staffing and deployment benchmarks for career fire departments. While NFPA standards are not automatically law, they serve as a national reference point for what “adequate” means.
Jimenez said Pennsylvania’s averages are nowhere close.
“Across the state of Pennsylvania, we’re averaging 2.29 firefighters per fire engine and 2.07 firefighters per fire truck.” “We want to be preventative, we want to be proactive instead of reactive.” —Lou Jimenez
For unions, those numbers translate into operational reality: fewer hands to stretch lines, fewer personnel to search a structure, fewer firefighters available to rescue a downed colleague. It also means that departments can appear “open” and “responding” while quietly relying on overtime, mutual aid or hope.
The union leaders described a familiar pattern in municipal governance: elected officials publicly praise firefighters, then cite budget constraints when staffing requests reach the agenda.
Jimenez said the problem is not merely financial. It is political.
He broke down what he sees as the core obstacles to safe staffing in Pennsylvania: funding and the budget dominate, political resistance follows, and recruitment and retention make up a smaller share.
“We’re the insurance policy for our municipalities, and they seem to take us for granted. … We want to be preventative, we want to be proactive instead of reactive.” —Lou Jimenez
That framing matters because the staffing debate is not confined to a single contract cycle. It is tied to how cities prioritize public safety, how states structure support for local governments and how federal programs are designed to meet real-world needs.
In Hazleton, Klein described a budget process that has included meetings, conversations and promises — without durable movement.
He said the local union began publicly pushing staffing concerns in the spring, including ending what firefighters called a “fire truck parade,” in which multiple apparatus were driven separately to calls when staffing was available, an approach he described as inefficient and out of step with operational common sense.
By December, Klein said the union was advocating for four additional firefighters ahead of budget decisions. Now, he said, the fight continues with a council meeting looming.
Klein offered a snapshot of Hazleton’s staffing reality: 20 firefighters plus a chief and two deputy chiefs for the entire department, serving a city of roughly 30,000 that he said is growing with new development.
On any given shift, he said staffing can range from three to five firefighters.
That means, at minimum staffing, one firefighter may be assigned across two engine companies and one firefighter to a ladder company—an arrangement that underscores the gap between public expectations and operational capacity.
Klein said the staffing model has been in place for decades, dating back to a time when volunteer response could supplement career crews more reliably.
But that assumption no longer holds.
Both union leaders returned repeatedly to the decline of volunteer firefighting as a structural shift that local governments have been slow to confront.
Jimenez cited a dramatic drop in Pennsylvania’s volunteer firefighter ranks over the decades, arguing that economic and demographic changes have made the old model unsustainable. People commute, work schedules are less flexible, and the “factory horn” era — when workers could leave their jobs to respond — has largely disappeared.
His conclusion was direct: municipalities will need more paid staffing, whether leaders want to admit it or not.
Klein echoed the point from Hazleton’s perspective, saying volunteer turnout for average calls can be one or two people, with four or five on a house fire, depending on the day.
He argued that the decline not only endangers career firefighters, but also endangers the public. It also places volunteers in more dangerous situations when they arrive at scenes without sufficient staffing and support.
In Bethlehem, Jimenez described a different but related pressure point: mandatory overtime.
He said the department does not have enough staff to consistently fill minimums, leading to firefighters being held over to work shifts they did not plan for.
The operational consequence is fatigue. The labor consequence is burnout. The safety consequence is obvious.
Jimenez said members are increasingly vocal about the strain, and he framed the issue as a choice municipal leaders are making: saving money in the short term by shifting the burden onto firefighters.
The conversation also touched on federal assistance, including SAFER grants and AFG grants, programs often cited as pathways to staffing and equipment support.
Jimenez said assistance exists but is underused or avoided by municipalities because of the long-term obligation: when grant funding ends, local governments must retain the positions.
Klein added a sharp critique from the ground: Hazleton applied for a SAFER grant and did not receive it despite severe understaffing.
He argued that national policy discussions often emphasize volunteer recruitment and retention grants while under-resourcing career staffing needs.
For Labor Legislation 2026, that critique is a policy signal: if grants are not reaching the departments with the most acute staffing shortages, then the system is not aligned with risk.
Both union leaders emphasized that the staffing crisis is not only about firefighter working conditions. It is about whether residents can expect a timely, effective response when a fire breaks out, a medical call comes in, or a commercial building incident escalates.
Klein described the psychological burden on firefighters who know that, in a worst-case scenario, there may not be enough personnel to rescue a downed colleague.
He said frustration is rising among members as they continue to encounter pushback from city leadership.
Jimenez returned to the Fall River example as a warning: reforms often come only after tragedy, when the cost is already paid.
The union message was consistent: safe staffing is the most essential tool in the fire service.
What is the NFPA 1710 standard for fire staffing? NFPA 1710 is the national benchmark for career fire departments. It requires a minimum of four firefighters on each engine and ladder company to ensure that essential tasks—such as search, rescue and water supply—can be performed simultaneously and safely.
Why is the decline of volunteer firefighting a crisis in Pennsylvania? Pennsylvania’s volunteer ranks have dropped from 300,000 in the 1970s to fewer than 30,000 in 2026. Because modern work schedules and economic pressures prevent volunteers from responding during the day, many municipalities are left with "paper departments" that cannot respond to emergencies without career support.
Why do some municipalities avoid SAFER grants? While SAFER grants provide initial federal funding to hire firefighters, they often include "retention requirements" that mandate the municipality take over the full salary and benefits after the grant expires. Many local governments cite budget constraints as the reason they cannot commit to these long-term costs.