In 1958, it didn't matter much that the Stony Hill Fire Department was a tin shed behind the Falls Lake Grocery. If a fire broke out, any one of a dozen men jolted out of bed and came running at the scream of a siren.

But a volunteer crew doesn't cut it anymore. Not with tony subdivisions and colossal new homes starting at $500,000. Still, a blaze in this rural community often gets fought by a pair of men -- one on the truck and one on the hose.

It's a shortage that vexes fire departments across rural Wake County, home to roughly 180,000 people. Firefighters are pushing for $7.6 million over the next three years to buy bigger, full-time crews.

With subdivisions popping up on old farm land, and fire trucks needed at every fender-bender or heart attack, firefighters say Wake County's far-flung communities cannot stay safe with weekend volunteers. More full-timers are needed to reduce long response times, man stations when volunteers have to work, and field bigger crews to battle blazes.

Professional firefighters are also needed to compensate for the steady decline in the number of volunteers willing to fight fires. In the past 10 years, the roster of volunteers has shrunk by 24 percent, Wake fire chiefs say.

County officials, meanwhile, wonder if it might be time to revamp the archaic system of 19 fire districts, close redundant stations, and combine others.

Growth is changing the landscape of firefighting -- both in the Triangle and across North Carolina, said Paul F. Miller, executive director of the 52,000-member N.C. State Firemen's Association. Used to be, fire departments were either all-volunteer, covering small-town and rural areas, or all-professional, mostly seen in large and medium-sized cities.

But with the relentless sprawl marching out of Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte and other cities, once-rural volunteer fire departments have been forced to hire full-time professionals, Miller said, to handle the increased number of fire and emergency medical calls. As a result, few fire departments that once wore the 'volunteer' logo are all-volunteer anymore.

"What we are seeing is what we call the combination fire department -- it's a whole new animal," Miller said.

Changing landscape

The trend is readily apparent in Wake County. In Apex, calls have shot up by 300 in each of the last several years, topping 2,100 in 2007.

Chief Mark Haraway recalled when two of his men rushed into a burning house about three years ago, alone and first on the scene.

"They both fell through the floor," he said. "We've had some close calls."

His station on New Hill-Holleman Road finished 2007 with one of the longest response times in the county: 13.3 minutes -- about 4 minutes short of Wake County's goal.

On weekdays, it gets staffed by two full-time, paid firefighters. At night and on weekends, it's mostly volunteers.

"The problem is I've only got about 10 volunteers," Haraway said.

Part of the trouble comes from Wake County's changing landscape.

Consider Stony Hill, which sits just west of Wake Forest near Falls Lake.

Along New Light Road, you can still see the signs of old-time country life: single-wide mobile homes and family grave plots, some with the inscriptions hand-carved on rocks.

But just across the street from these relics, the massive brick homes of Kelsey at Falls Lake sell starting at $500,000. Firefighters call those homes, with their lofty peaks and airy attic spaces, a nightmare in a fire.

The situation at Stony Hill's Station No. 2 mirrors Apex: two paid men during on weekdays, volunteers at night and on weekends -- if they show up.

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