Montgomery Township's Board of Supervisors voted Monday night to hire 11 more career firefighters after a drop in volunteers caused some weekend emergency response times to exceed national standards.

The board also voted to establish a "fire tax" to pay for it. A final vote is scheduled to be held at the December 15 meeting.

While the township's five career firefighters typically respond to emergencies within five minutes, well below the national standard of nine minutes, Montgomery Township Fire Chief Bill Wiegman said it sometimes takes his department's volunteers, who fully staff the weekend shifts, more than 10 minutes to arrive at emergencies.

"Not only are you decreasing victim survivability and allowing for fire [to] spread," Wiegman said, "you're also putting your people in greater danger."

According to his department's internal numbers, in 2015 Montgomery Township had about 34 volunteers who met the township's firefighting standards. In 2025, only 11 volunteers met those standards.

"The issue we have is a lot of those younger members move out of town," Wiegman said. "They can't afford to buy a house in Montgomery Township."

Finding volunteers continues to be a problem across the region.

In October, CBS News Philadelphia reported on the ongoing volunteer shortage facing South Jersey fire departments and the solutions being proposed by lawmakers.

Wiegman wants to have enough firefighters to staff a truck full-time, but the only way to do that is to raise taxes.

The department estimates local homeowners could pay up to an extra $500 a year, depending on their property's value.

Some residents expressed concern about the cost during a township meeting two weeks ago.

"These are very hard economic times for everybody right now," Jennifer Hunter said.

Brinder Gill added, "I think we need to do our due diligence to figure out what we can do to limit the costs."

"Just want to make the board aware that this is painful for people on a forced income," Bruce Sobus mentioned.

One alternative to save money would be for more people to step up to volunteer, like Lee Morano. At 78 years old, Morano is a captain for the fire police, which shuts down roads to protect firefighters while they work.

"My wife says, 'You hate the cold weather; you hate the rain; you hate the snow and here you are volunteering to stand out on the street for three, four, five hours at a time.'" Morano said. "I love it."