Firefighting is a brotherhood.
Few people understand that better than Eric and Jason Vander Kooy.
They both joined the McLean Road Fire Department in rural Skagit County 28 years ago, becoming part of a close extended family.
"It's great working with my brother," said Eric Vander Kooy. "Everybody here is my brother and sister, too, when you've been here this long."
But that family is shrinking. The department is down to just 20 volunteers. That's half what it was when the Vander Kooys joined.
Those numbers mirror a statewide trend.
In 1984 there were 23,000 volunteer firefighters in Washington.
That number is now 10,000.
With calls, crashes, and crime climbing, along with a growing population, Jason Vander Kooy worries about what impact the dwindling numbers will have on the people of his community and the rest of rural Washington.