The message Peachtree City Fire Department operations officer Ed Eiswerth wants to get out is this: All we need is you.

"The city's providing training and equipment we just need the bodies to fill the squares," he said. "You give us the time, we'll provide everything else."

Eiswerth ticked off recent capital outlays: purchase of new engines, a brush truck, automatic external defibrillators and thermal imagers; a new station and training center with tower to be built in Peachtree City; new breathing systems, bunker gear, cell phones on all trucks.

"The city fathers are providing the most up-to-date technology available, and our instructors are nationally certified. We're all professionals, and our training is better than it has ever been.

"You provide the time, and we'll give you everything else," he reiterated.

Requirements for fire department volunteers are pretty basic, Eiswerth said: Applicants must be at least 18 and pass a background and drivers' check.

"The first interview process after an application has been submitted is primarily an informative session," he continued. "If the candidate wants to continue after the time commitment has been explained, he or she undergoes a physical exam."

This is a basic health check, Eiswerth said, and is intended to ensure that a candidate has the physical ability to perform the duties of a firefighter or emergency responder without endangering himself/herself or others.

After a six-month probationary period, including assorted activities and in-house training sessions (evenings and weekends), the volunteer must maintain a certain percentage of call responses. In addition, he or she enters the annual recruit school, conducted here, that leads to an NPQ Firefighter I certification within a year.

Alternatively, a candidate may attend classes full-time for about three weeks at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth, Ga. This course is funded by the state and costs the trainee nothing, not even room and board, Eiswerth said.

Similarly, he added, if an applicant is interested primarily in emergency medical training, he or she may go to EMT school, which is covered by the state HOPE grant.