PLUM CITY — The Plum City/Union Fire Department has been 100% volunteer led since 1911. Fire Chief PJ Hines said it is not about the money for them, but helping people and serving the community.

PJ has been in the fire service for 25 years, started at the Plum City/Union department in 2008 and became chief in 2011. PJ’s father was a firefighter in Elmwood, and now his daughter is a firefighter alongside him and his son is set to join in January.

For PJ, there is no dollar amount that compares to the reward of helping someone.

“It’s a passion, but that’s like everything in life,” PJ said. “If you don’t have the passion to do it, you’re not going to roll your hind end out of bed.”

While many volunteer departments go to systems of pay-per-call or pay-per-hour, PJ said his firefighters voted against it due to pride in what they do.

“If you didn’t love doing it, you wouldn’t do it,” PJ said. “I think we’re one of the few that is 100% volunteer for everything we do.”

“You have to love it or you’re not going to be worth a darn,” PJ said. “You’ll wear the T-shirt, you’ll sleep through the pager. There’s two things that wake me up: my alarm clock and my pager. You could drive a truck into my house and I wouldn’t hear it.”

When a large fire sparked at Beav’s Restaurant and Tavern around 12:30 a.m. June 29, over 80 firefighters and EMS arrived on the scene. Departments from all over the area came to help, and PJ said it means the world to his department.

“You go where you’re needed no matter what distance or what time of the day or night it is,” PJ said. “We had departments coming from Nelson-Alma. They’re an hour away, and not a quick way to get here either, but they still showed up with crews to help.”

PJ said people got out of bed and put their lives in danger for a community that they do not even live in, and that says a lot about fire service. He mentioned there is no job that has camaraderie quite like fire service, and it extends past just internally to working with other departments.

While firefighting does not always have the traditional night shift of jobs like police officers and doctors, they have to be ready to go at all hours of every day.

“It’s kind of second nature to me now because I’ve been doing it so long,” PJ said. “There’s guys that wonder how you get to the hall so fast when they live closer than you, but there’s a few things to do… I get done with work at night, I leave my clothes from that day sitting on my bench and pager goes off at night, you’ve got a set of clothes to throw on.”

Allysha Hines, who is 19 and the daughter of PJ, joined the department at 16 through a junior program the department has, and has stuck around ever since.

“It’s a lot about teamwork and having a family that isn’t blood, even though some of it is,” Allysha said.

Allysha acknowledged the dedication it takes to be a part of a department, but that dedication also brings them together.

“You show up no matter what,” Allysha said. “It’s leaving family dinners and dates. Leaving school to go save someone’s life or potentially help someone out.”

Allysha said the department has a wide age range, and it benefits them to get different perspectives on how something should be done.

“There’s nothing more rewarding, in my opinion, than being able to help someone out at their lowest of lows or worst day,” PJ said.

PJ is thankful for everyone in the Plum City/Union department, where he said they have a lot of volunteers in proportion to the size of the area. For anyone with even a slight interest in becoming a firefighter, PJ encouraged people to talk to firefighters from their local departments.

This article is the second part of a series of night shift features. If you or someone you know works the night shift in Pierce County and would like to share your story, reach out to andrew@piercecountyjournal.news.