NEWS FROM NFPA AND BEYOND because someone who worked at a factory could also be an EMT, someone who worked at AutoZone could also be an EMT, someone who worked at the grocery store could also be an EMT." Equally important to the challenges departments face in finding volunteers are the ones they face in keeping them. A new report published by the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) offers the first comprehensive look at why volunteers choose to leave departments-and the findings reveal a critical divide in why former members say they left and why current members and department leaders think members leave. Researchers hope the report will help inform strategies by fire service leaders to help reverse the negative trend in volunteer firefighter retention throughout the United States. "I'm hoping that this study is going to lead to materials and info we can distribute to volunteer fire departments that will make them more successful," said Steve Hirsch, chair of the NVFC Board of Directors. Culture, not schedule Of the more than 1,000 current and former volunteer firefighters surveyed in the new NVFC report, over N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL Dispatches_11.20 DCS FINAL 10.30.20.indd 13 | 13 10/30/20 4:44 PMhttp://nfpa.org/journal