Finally tonight, the declining number of volunteer firefighters isn't a new problem, but it's one that's posing a serious risk to people and their homes across New Jersey, especially in small and rural towns.

More than five years after the state created a task force to look into the matter, the members issued a report showing the situation is dire.

But there may be a way to fix it.

Raven Santana.

Reports.

That loud siren usually indicates to everyone somebody needs help and they're going to get it.

But Manchester Township volunteer firefighter John Johnston says help has been looking a lot different due to the shortage of volunteer firefighters and small to midsize towns like Manchester.

Across the state.

The House can go start with a small fire outside and end up burning an entire building down.

The amount of people that are around anymore is just not enough.

We need more.

People.

That's because only 8.3% of New Jersey fire departments are staffed by career officers.

According to New Jersey Division of Fire Safety Statistics.

The rest are volunteers or a combination of both.

It's been getting worse.

We've now reached emergency conditions.

Small town fire departments are going out of business.

Members don't have the time for the training requirements.

The demographics of small towns are much different.

Bob Morris is vice president of the New Jersey State Fire Chief Association.

He says if something doesn't change, lives could be put on the line.

Now, this is an emergency.

People dial 911 and they're not getting a fire engine from their town 4 minutes away.

They're getting fire engines from neighboring towns 12 to 15 minutes away.

Quite honestly, people are dying.

Okay, because the response is so far.

Ultimately, you're going to have houses burned and possibly people lose their lives.

And that's that's unfortunate.

We don't want to see that ever.

Joseph Hankins is the chairman of the special task force on volunteer Retention and Recruitment and a volunteer firefighter in Manchester.

The task force recently sounded the alarm about the concerning trend by releasing a report last month looking at the growing shortage of volunteer firefighters and other first responders in New Jersey.

The state commissioned report outlines several recommendations to expand the ranks of volunteers, including.

One of the other things we went into in the in the report was opening up maybe the vocational schools to teach firefighter one firefighter two, and the availability of EMT training through vocational or high school.

And this way, when they graduate high school, they've got a trade that they can run right into.

And if nothing improves, the trend could eventually force more municipalities to pay emergency workers at taxpayers expense.

A trend continues and we continue to move away or lose volunteers.

It has a significant budgetary impact on on municipalities who may not simply be able to afford it, particularly when you're operating within a 2% property tax cap.

So, you know, other services may have to be sacrificed at the expense of of of having to go or add on professionals or go fully professional.

So it really becomes a challenge for property taxpayers.

In the meantime, veteran volunteer firefighters like Tony Nasta says they're doing their part to retain and recruit more volunteers.

When we sent out our fund drive letters, most of the people in towns think we're paid and we're not because they come from the city and they come down here and say, Oh, you're paid.

No, we volunteer.

That's why we send you a fund drive letter to say, Hey, help support us.

Firefighters now hope that the recommendations in the new report will be implemented to help support volunteer firefighters and volunteer fire stations that communities like Manchester Township rely on when danger strikes.

For NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana.