Fire Chief Randy O’Donnell of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, left, discusses the plan for clearing smoke from a house. All-volunteer fire departments like his are finding it harder to recruit new members. The Pew Charitable Trusts

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. — Everybody in this fire station was sleeping one recent morning when the alarms started blaring. Six firefighters hopped out of their bunks and pulled their gear over their pajamas. The sun was still coming up when they reached a house where smoke was rising from the basement.

Afterward, back in their pajamas, the young men gathered in the station’s control room. The chief’s son wrote up the report: furnace malfunction in the basement, no injuries, no damage. Then the bantering began — about girlfriends, the holidays and work.

This all-volunteer fire station and the two others in Shippensburg, a factory and university town of about 5,500 people in a central Pennsylvania valley, are vestiges of the past. Firefighters sit around on weekdays playing rummy, and people gather for bingo Friday nights. Yet, the stations are much quieter than they were decades ago, when they felt like the center of the town. And as the community’s interests have shifted from the fire stations, the number of volunteers has fallen.

“Everybody has other things occupying their time,” said Shippensburg Fire Chief Randy O’Donnell.

The number of volunteer firefighters has been falling for decades here and across the country, dropping by about 12 percent from 1984 to about 788,000 in 2014. That has spelled trouble for cities and towns — especially smaller ones in more rural areas — that have always depended on volunteer departments to save thousands, even millions, of dollars every year on salaries and benefits. Many have been forced to hire at least some paid staff.

The decline in volunteers has become more drastic in the last decade, as young people have moved out of rural areas and into bigger cities.

To stem the loss, states increasingly are offering financial incentives for volunteer firefighters, such as tax breaks. Pennsylvania passed a law in November that will give volunteer firefighters property tax or local income tax credits. Connecticut expanded a similar law last year, and Alaska and New York have similar laws in place.

Other states are choosing to forgo state revenue to give income tax credits to volunteer firefighters. Nebraska passed a law last year, and similar laws are on the books in Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, New York and South Carolina. Some of the laws also apply to other emergency responders, such as paramedics.

O’Donnell and other chiefs across the country welcome the tax breaks, which they say help offset the costs of volunteering, such as driving personal cars to and from the station. They say the incentives might convince existing volunteers to stay around longer — but they probably won’t convince others who don’t already have the desire to serve to volunteer.

It’s become harder to recruit volunteer firefighters as family and work environments have changed, said Jack Reckner of the Kentucky Association of Fire Chiefs, which for years has been advocating for a tax credit in the state.

Men — who have always been the majority of volunteer firefighters — are taking a larger role in raising children and more of their wives are working. Commutes are longer. Sports and other activities are pulling families in more directions. Volunteerism, in general, is on the decline.

“Volunteerism is one of the first things that go by the wayside, simply because people can’t afford it,” Reckner said.

Demands on Volunteers

States’ reliance on volunteer firefighters varies greatly. In Pennsylvania, about 97 percent of departments are run by all or mostly volunteers, compared to 9.1 percent in Hawaii.

As the number of volunteers goes down, the number of departments with mostly or all paid staff goes up – from 4,209 departments in 2009 to 4,485 in 2014.