When he joined the Athol Fire Department as a call firefighter nearly four decades ago, John Duguay said there were eight firefighters on each apparatus, and the town had three engines and a ladder truck. There were so many call firefighters that the Union-Twist Drill plant had alarm speakers installed throughout the factory to alert the many volunteers when they were needed.

Plenty of manpower, recalls Duguay, the Fire Department’s recently retired chief. Duguay says that today the Athol call force is critically low in numbers, with just 10 volunteers.

“We are at an all-time low in numbers,” said Duguay, who said he was looking at establishing an Explorer post, to get young people interested in fire service.

He is not the only one to lament the historic low turnout of volunteers for firefighter and EMTs positions in the towns of the North Quabbin region and in other rural towns of western Massachusetts. And his idea of forming an Explorer post for teens has real merit. You just have to look westward down Route 2 to see the potential for volunteerism among young people.

Twenty-year-old EMT Samantha Cairns of Buckland has a strong sense of the importance of volunteering in rural towns.

The newest and youngest member of Shelburne Falls Fire District’s ambulance team, she is an emergency medical technician who is on track to become a paramedic and a firefighter. But in the meantime, she’s volunteering her EMT expertise for both the Shelburne Falls and the Shelburne Center fire districts. She has gone on about 50 ambulance calls so far, in an ambulance service that gets about 300 calls per year.

She also sleeps with the public safety radio scanner on and goes out at night on calls.

“I always think, if it were one of my family members, I would want somebody to respond, whatever time it was,” she said. “Living in a small town, I know a lot of people. I have connections here and, for me, it’s a way to give back to my community.”

That’s the mantra, mostly unspoken, of all the volunteer firefighters and EMTs that staff and support the fire and ambulance departments in our rural towns in this region.

Cairns has joined her hometown fire districts at a time when the community is getting older — and so are the emergency responders. For years, on and off, fire chiefs and ambulance directors in the region have bemoaned the lack of volunteers compared to times past when most everyone worked in their respective towns, providing a ready pool of help, night or day, like at Union Twist Drill. In these times, many people work out of town, meaning they are not available for daytime calls even if they go to the trouble and expense to become certified EMTs or firefighters.

This type of work isn’t for everyone, and not everyone’s lives can accommodate the time commitment, but there is always room for volunteers to help, and there are unseen rewards. If people better understand the rewards that come from helping neighbors in distress, more would step forward.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old; if you’re interested, in the least bit, you can volunteer and get all your training in-house, and do great things,” Cairns tells us.

In this region EMTs can find themselves treating a patient 20 minutes from a hospital. For a rural EMT, says Cairn, “You have to be right on your toes, and be able to identify and look for everything. You need to know when to call for other resources — whether it’s ALS (Advanced Life Support), or paramedics or LifeFlight.”

And in rural emergency medical service, she says, “You have to depend on surrounding towns” — on each other, which of course is exactly what we all do: we rely on our volunteers.

So, as Athol’s retiring fire chief knows so well from decades of daily experience responding to emergencies, more of the town’s residents — young or old — should consider whether they can step up.

It’s a great responsibility, a great privilege, and a great opportunity.