VFF videographer Tim Terry II shooting the Wallbridge Fire / Image: Sashwa Burrous / 2020
Few Americans understand what’s at stake for volunteer firefighters. So we’re filming a documentary to tell their story.
We believe communities would jump at the chance to help their volunteer firefighters – if only they knew how.
Let’s face it: volunteer firefighters are great crisis managers and natural problem solvers but generally lousy publicists. It makes sense. Volunteer firefighters are well accustomed to giving aid but much less comfortable requesting and receiving it.
As a result, few people outside the fire service understand the critical role that volunteer firefighters play in emergency response nationwide – and even fewer realize how tenuous their existence has become in our ever-evolving world.
In 2020, Volunteer Fire Foundation began production on a feature-length documentary film to tell the story of volunteer firefighting in America.
Our creative partners in this project are award-winning filmmakers Sashwa Burrous and Tim Terry II of The Coldwater Collective. Sashwa and Tim have filmed the fiery front lines of the 2020 Walbridge and Glass Fires as well as countless other calls around the county in an effort to answer the following questions:
What kind of people become volunteer firefighters?
What are the greatest threats to their existence?
And what’s at stake if we lose them?
Given our team’s unprecedented access to not only the historic fires that continue to devastate Sonoma County but the unsung heroes who battle them, we are in a unique position to bring the surprising, engrossing, and deeply moving story of volunteer firefighters to audiences far and wide.
