Journalism runs in my family. My mom spent many years as a newspaper reporter and editor. Both of my parents worked at the same newspaper when I was born, swapping shifts with me waiting in my baby carrier in the newsroom.
My grandma was a secretary, but I like to think she was a reporter at heart, too. Her curiosity mainly led her to be a bit of a busybody, but I think if redirected, she could have had a front page above the fold byline in the Canton Repository.
Public service runs in my family too. After her journalism career, my mom worked at my hometown library for nearly a decade. My dad's been a public school teacher for more than 20 years. The year I went to kindergarten was his first year teaching kindergarten. I hope they let him graduate soon.
My parents raised me and my siblings in a very community orientated way. We volunteered at the foodbank, raked our neighbor's lawn, brought a hot meal to a friend going through a hard time. I think of journalism as a public service too. We're tasked with holding truth to power, telling stories in our communities and providing needed information to the region.
For the past year, I've learned a lot about a different kind of public service that's passed down from generation to generation — volunteer firefighting.
This week, reporters Abbey Marshall, Kendall Crawford and I have been digging into Ohio's volunteer firefighter system, exploring the problems it faces and looking into possible solutions that could relieve some of the pressure in our series "Sound the Alarm."
I've spoken with dozens of volunteer firefighters across the state for this series, and there's one throughline that is almost always true about these first responders: They're not the first in their family to do it.
One of the people who sticks with me the most from my reporting is David Lemponen. He volunteered with the Austinburg Volunteer Fire Department for more than 60 years. At 83, he was still responding to calls, and in 2017, he was fatally struck by a car while directing traffic at the scene of a car accident. He died the next day.
Lemponen no doubt saved and changed hundreds of lives during his six-decade career, but his legacy didn't end with him. His daughter followed him into the service, volunteering with her dad for three decades before he died.
The Lemponens are not alone in making volunteer firefighting the family business. The fire chief in Austinburg, William Wilms, is the third generation in his family to lead the department. His dad, in his 80s now, still goes on runs with them.
These families put their lives on the line to protect their communities for a job that often pays them nothing and can be more dangerous than working for a fire department staffed by paid career firefighters. Our investigation found that between 1990 and 2025, 57% of Ohio firefighter fatalities were volunteers, which is 10 percent higher than the national average.
Daniel Knapke knows the danger. He's a third generation firefighter working at a full-time department in Southwest Ohio. Both his grandpa and father died as a result of their service as volunteer firefighters. His grandpa died of pancreatic cancer, which Knapke attributes to decades of being exposed to smoke, diesel exhaust and toxic chemicals. His dad died of a heart attack the week after his wedding, while he and his new wife were on their honeymoon.
Even though volunteer firefighting is in his blood, Knapke made the move to become a full-time firefighter after his dad died. He wants to be able to retire some day and have time off to spend with his family.
“The (volunteer) fire service can't be my whole life,” he said. “It's not fair to my family.”
That's a decision a lot of the descendants of volunteer firefighters appear to be making. Our investigation found that the number of active volunteer certifications has decreased by nearly 15% since January 2020.
Growing up, public service was the bread and butter of Paula Rea's family. Her dad and mom both joined the Jefferson Fire Department together as volunteers in 1971. Her mom eventually became a police officer, serving as a school resource officer for many years. Her dad, fire chief at the department since 1975, a former township trustee and Jefferson's 1986 citizen of the year, died of a heart attack the day after responding to a car accident in 2013.
Rea followed in her parent's footsteps, volunteering as a firefighter and emergency medical technician for many years. She even met her husband in paramedic school. Now, she's a retired dispatcher, and her husband is close to retiring as fire chief of the Cortland Fire Department.
Their son hasn't taken up the family tradition of being a first responder, but he's still focused on giving back to their community, Rea said. And that makes her proud.
Many volunteer firefighters worry they're going extinct, that the next generation won't be able to take up the mantel of serving their communities in such a dangerous way for nothing in return.
Volunteer fire departments having to close their doors is a very real possibility. But one of the many things this project has taught me is that we have to take care of each other, one way or another.
For most of us, that won't mean running into a burning building, but perhaps our families can make a generational impact in our own ways.
"The Cut" is featured in Ideastream Public Media's weekly newsletter, The Frequency Week in Review. To get The Frequency Week in Review, The Daily Frequency or any of our newsletters, sign up on Ideastream's newsletter subscription page.
