FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Editor’s Note: This is the last in a three-part series on the city’s volunteer fire department.

Last week, the Fairhope Volunteer Fire Department visited all local public schools to educate students about fire safety as part of National Fire Prevention Week. Next week, Firefighter Kent of the Mobile Fire Department and his puppet friend Dusty the Smoke-Smelling Dragon, and real live Precious the Talking Bird, will tell children about fire safety at the Fairhope Public Library.

“What a great way for preschoolers to learn what to do in case of a fire,” said Karen Kirby of the FPL youth services department. The event is at 4 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 20, at the library.

The FVFD has been busy this year under the leadership of its new chief, John Saraceno, who was elected to the job in January, but one new project is just getting started in which the local community can get involved.

Some of those projects include developing plans for a fourth fire station, organizing the first Explorers Post and upgrading the department’s local fire training center.

But the latest project is the launch of a Fire Corps program, soon to be seen in public service announcements on local television stations. The PSAs encourage the public to get involved in the fire department, Saraceno said.

“It’s a community auxiliary program,” Saraceno said recently at his office at Leo Keller Station No. 1. “We’re asking for anyone and everyone to help us start this program. We will utilize people for whatever they can do at the department, so that we can concentrate on training and answering fire calls.”

Every person has different skills that could be useful to the department, so each person will be asked to contribute what they know how to do best to help the department, he said.

The local Fire Corps program is modeled after a national program that helps local fire departments “build more capacity by connecting them to community volunteers who can assist in a variety of non-emergency roles,” according to the national Fire Corps Web site.

The national program began in 2004 and is managed by a National Volunteer Fire Council and works with various organizations that make up the Fire Corps National Advisory Committee.

“We’re hoping to start a completely new operation to support the fire department,” Saraceno said.

With 43 firefighters, the current Fairhope Volunteer Fire Department is the latest incarnation of a local firefighting institution and tradition that began in 1936, according to the city of Fairhope’s Web site.

Formed that year to fight fires from Spanish Fort to south of Point Clear, the Eastern Shore Fire Department became the FVFD two years later, with the city’s first fire station housed in the old city hall building on North Section Street, where the Fairhope Museum of History is located now.

That museum has an authentic fire engine and other firefighting gear from that era on display.

The current department, which is organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, now provides fire protection for the Fairhope fire jurisdiction with three fire stations and some 19 vehicles, including seven engine trucks, one airport crash, and two rescue vehicles, Saraceno said.

Saraceno became a member of the local volunteer fire department about 20 years ago.

“I never thought of doing it,” said Saraceno, 44, referring to how a friend first encouraged him to join the department. “You either love it or hate it. If it gets in your blood, you’ll do it the rest of your life.”

Although the FVFD is independent of Fairhope’s municipal government and management in some respects, it does receive appropriations from the city, with a budget of $887,340 approved for the current fiscal year that started Oct. 1. That is an increase from last year’s amended budget of $753,287, which is an amount close to what was actually spent during the year.

This year’s budget lists salaries in the amount of $473,116, which includes pay for several dispatchers at the police station who also respond to fire calls, and to some paid staff at the fire department station houses, according to city records.

The City Council is expected to pass a resolution at the next council meeting authorizing Mayor Tim Kant to sign a contract with the FVFD that will set out the rights and responsibilities between the city and department.

“This is something we should have done a long time ago,” Council President Debbie Quinn said at this week’s work session prior to the council meeting.

The Alabama League of Municipalities recommended that the city have such a contract with most of the organizations it provides funds for, which led to the drafting of the current contract document, Quinn said during a recent phone conversation.

Having that contract will help ensure that the city receives services from the department for the funds it provides, she said.

In addition, a meeting was scheduled this week between Saraceno and City Administrator Gregg Mims to discuss the interest of the FVFD having more input into fire inspections in the city, Mims told the council at Monday’s council meeting.

The city currently employs one fire inspector, Tom Odom, who is not supervised by Saraceno. Odom served 40 years as a local volunteer firefighter and is the unofficial historian for the department, according to the city Web site. He is also Kant’s father-in-law.

During a recent skills exercise at the department’s training center behind Roy White Station No. 2 on Thompson Hall Road, several students from the new Explorers Post watched while firefighters entered a burn room, which simulates the conditions of heat and smoke in a burning building. Among the firefighters who received training that night were the department’s two female firefighters.

“We started the Explorers Post the first of year and now are full with 15 kids,” said Saraceno, noting the program is for ages 14 to 18, at which time they can join the department as members. “It offers training, discipline and career opportunities. And, at age 16, they can ride on the truck. ”

Standing nearby as firefighters put on their fire-retardant suits, masks and oxygen tanks before they entered the burn room, one student with the Explorers Post said he was encouraged to join the post by a friend who had already joined and whose father was a firefighter.

“They’re brave,” said David Thomas, a 10th-grader at Fairhope High School, about the firefighters he had seen in action since joining the Explorers Post.

For more information about the Fairhope Volunteer Fire Department or its Fire Corps program, call 990-0143 and leave a message.