When a fire in a New Gloucester mobile home was reported in the middle of the night, it took three towns to muster enough firefighters to fight the blaze.
Poland Fire Chief Tom Printup, the first to arrive on scene because he lives nearby, said 12 firefighters responded to the fire on Quarry Road just after 2 a.m. Thursday. With the abandoned mobile home fully involved and already collapsing, firefighters could handle the call because they did not need to enter the building or rescue anyone.
But if the situation had been different, at least a half-dozen more firefighters would have been needed on the scene.
“We managed this morning, but if you had to do an interior attack or had someone injured, we wouldn’t have had enough,” Printup said. The shortage of firefighters like the one experienced Thursday in New Gloucester is becoming more of an issue in towns and cities across the country and is especially noticeable in Maine towns that depend on volunteers and call force firefighters.