The Sun City West Fire District board decided Thursday to spend about $5,000 on a program that would recruit volunteers to do jobs that would free firefighters to tend to more critical duties.

The fire corps volunteer program is modeled after a similar effort in Green Valley, a community south of Tucson. It would place trained volunteers in roles currently filled by firefighters. Some of the work the volunteers would do includes installing lockboxes, smoke detectors and taking care of other non-emergency duties.

The new program was approved 4-0 with one abstention and is expected to start by the beginning of the year, said Fire Chief Robert Biscoe.

Board member Jack Meyer said in this week's workshop that he would make a motion to abandon the fire corps idea, but he changed his mind after examining the Green Valley effort, which officials in that community have deemed a success.

"I haven't been 100 percent behind this because of the cost versus the return," he said. "What I learned is that the fire corps is important, that it's kept many of the department's apparatus off the streets when they didn't need to be there."

Volunteers would be certified by the department and receive several hours of training.

The program is expected to cost about $5,000 to implement, officials said. Biscoe said the funds would be used for uniform T-shirts and background checks on the candidates.

"Most of the costs for the program are for startup, so we don't even foresee using this much on a yearly basis," he said.

Biscoe said the department already has identified a half dozen candidates who already are involved with Sun City West Fire Department.

"They would eventually train the new volunteers as we phase this program in more over the next year," he said.

Mitchell Vantrease may be reached at 623-876-2526 or mvantrease@yourwestvalley.com.