Putting out fires could get a lot harder if Fire Chief Andrew Murray can’t get more volunteers to join his team.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to recruit them and retain them,” said Murray.

Being in a small community where many people work outside of town means a lot of candidates are unable to commit to the job. Many potential firefighters are also over committed already, Murray told Selectmen on Tuesday.

Volunteer firefighters must complete around 300 hours of training, certification and background checks to even be eligible.

“It takes me a full year to even send them out to do tasks by themselves,” said Murray.

The compensation isn’t much of a draw either, said Murray, whose budget has remained level for the past three years.

“We have just north of $80,000 to pay 26 members,” he said. “That’s maybe $3,000 if you’re very active. There’s not much incentive. You have to really have a passion to want to do this.”

Murray said he wants to develop a recruit and retention program to develop a strong team of on-call firefighters.

“We have to get creative at retaining the members that we get,” he said.