Volunteer firefighters from the Salisbury Fire Department threatened to separate from the city last week to form their own company.
The threat highlighted a long history of tension between volunteers and career firefighters in the city, but similar struggles are common to any fire department that incorporates career and volunteer firefighters.
And many long-tenured firefighters say that is nothing new.
"There are all sorts of battles between career and volunteer firefighters," said Curt Varone, an advocate who has been both a career and volunteer firefighter in his long career in New England.
"It certainly isn't a local problem, and I'm not even sure that it's just a national problem. It's probably international, wherever there are career and volunteer firefighters."