SAVANNAH, Ga. () – All volunteer firefighters in Chatham County resigned this week amidst what the volunteers said is a shortage of personnel.

The mass resignation comes less than a year after fire services in the county were transferred from a private company to a county-run fire service.

“Because it’s a calling and because we sacrifice so much, it’s like a kick in the gut,” Robert Bateman, one of the firefighters who resigned, said.

The resignation letter was sent to leadership Thursday and published to social media Friday in response to a set of new requirements put forth by the county at the end of March.

“This isn’t something we wanted to do. This isn’t a fight that we have any desire of being in, but we are left with no choice, and we didn’t want our community that we fought hard to serve just to have us hide and vanish with our tail between our legs,” Hunter Marr, another volunteer was resigned, said.

obtained a copy of the mandate detailing the new requirements, and they include changing the number of required training hours from 80 to 216 and requiring a minimum of 144 hours of shift work per year

“We just can’t give 360 hours plus work our regular jobs and be there for our families,” Marr said.

The new provisions also and include a new rule that only allows volunteers to respond to an emergency if they are on shift and bans them from responding in their personal vehicles.

“If we were willing to do that, the current rules and procedures still mean we likely won’t fight a fire,” Bill Horne, also a former volunteer, said.

Bateman said, “These new policies that we are unable to respond unless we are on shift in that particular area means that the house next door could go up and we would watch the smoke rise from our neighbor’s house.”

The Chatham County Fire Department (CCFD) issued a statement Friday that said they are disappointed in the resignation and that they put the changes in place to ensure all firefighters are able to, “perform safely and effectively under increasingly complex emergency conditions.”

Marr said, “The issue as it relates to liability is the fear that we’re going to get in a car accident or something else and the county is going to get sued. I think that’s a pretty shallow argument because the risk should really focus on not having a certified firefighter at a scene where somebody could get hurt or die.”

CCFD’s statement goes on to say that the new training requirements are considered best practices nationally.

“To focus on ostracizing 15 free volunteers while you still have 30 paid positions to deal with, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s where their attention should be at this point,” Marr said.

The volunteers said the new requirements are not the sole reason they’ve decided to resign as a group.

Instead, they said the March directive was the tipping point after several other privileges were revoked under county leadership.