THE PHONE NUMBER for Chancellor Volunteer Fire and Rescue listed on its website is 540/548-HERO. Alas, that's not quite the word that comes to mind after a series of volunteer incidents involving sexual misconduct.

Let's recap:

In July, 2010, a Chancellorsville Volunteer Fire Department captain was charged with sexual battery for an incident that took place during an EMT training exercise. He was exonerated, but he admitted during the trial that he frequently used "sexual off-color humor" during training because he was in a "stressful" job.

Earlier this month, a 23-year-old CVFD member, Justin Baber, was charged in the rape of a 13-year-old girl. The crime allegedly took place in a fire department vehicle.

This week, a CVFD rescue lieutenant, William Byrd, 42, was charged with taking indecent liberties with a minor, also in a department vehicle. The victim, 17, was volunteering at CVFD to get extra credit for a class she was taking at a Spotsylvania public school.

A former CVFD volunteer is under indictment on charges of possessing and producing child porn.

Last year, 10 members of the Spotsylvania Volunteer Fire Department were dismissed after an incident involving a naked 17-year-old female volunteer in a shower. Two of the 10 simply moved over to work with CVFD, admits Administrative Chief Kevin Dillard, who runs the department.

Supervisor Hap Connors wonders if there's a "systemic problem." This is a little like the police inspector at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wondering if foul play was involved. Many Spotsylvanians wonder, too. They wonder why the leaders of the Chancellor Volunteer Fire Department haven't already fallen on their swords. Early on, the pattern of carnal wrongdoing should have triggered immediate corrective action and some exemplary demotions. That this evidently wasn't done points to abysmal leadership.

Even though those charged with crimes are legally innocent until proven guilty, people in positions of high public trust and visibility should be held to a higher standard (as that "HERO" phone number implies). Some 237 volunteers serve in the Chancellor department, most honorably. Yet even the most upright is stained, through association, by his comrades' transgressions. And the wrongs don't stop there. They are also visited on teens-in-training who are exposed to (or victimized by) lewd behavior, and on the Chancellorsville community, which expects that those who bear its name not drag it through a sewer.

WHERE'S THE FIRE?