FORT KENT – Dana Pinette, one of nearly 500 volunteers working for the Biathlon World Cup competition, was moving snow around the staging area Friday as the final details of the ski-and-shoot races came together.

Kelly Martin, the volunteer coordinator for the first Biathlon World Cup competition ever held in New England, has been getting little sleep these days. She was answering questions about volunteers Friday morning, and her telephone kept ringing.

On Friday, the first uniformed volunteers left Fort Kent to make sure equipment and baggage from Lake Placid, N.Y., where a World Cup competition is taking place this weekend, will go to the right place after planes touch down at Presque Isle on Sunday.

While the competitions get under way Wednesday, people start arriving this weekend. Martin has 423 volunteers working at scores of jobs. More than 675 people signed up to help.

“It’s pretty exciting,” the young woman said, sitting behind the desk in her insurance office on Main Street in Fort Kent. “We’ve been at this for a year, and now it’s happening.

“It’s amazing in that we have volunteers from most of Aroostook County, and even one who is coming at his own expense from Alaska,” she said. “We have not had a hard time to get volunteers.”

Locally, many of the volunteers are those who helped out at the Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races last weekend. The core volunteers for each event work at both.

“Without volunteers, there would be no biathlon in Fort Kent,” Martin said.

She has found volunteers to do everything, including pay bills, set up staging, and to act as timers, range judges and inspectors, office clerks, hosts, security guards, food preparers, greeters, bus drivers, van drivers and electricians.

There are 19 area chiefs for duties from logistics to the shooting range. The volunteers are distributed among those leaders.

For instance, she said, the shooting range needs 75 people, the course another 16, and transportation uses 75 volunteers, including 28 bus drivers.

The transportation division expects to transport 5,000 people a day to and from the competition using 26 school buses, two MBNA buses, and a bunch of vans and cars. On top of that, they expect 18 to 20 school buses of schoolchildren and adults to attend the four days of competition.

Her numbers don’t even include the volunteers who are looking to welcome athletes and coaches at the Presque Isle Airport on Sunday. Those were found and organized by people in Caribou and Presque Isle.

“Volunteers can do so many of the little things that count so much at events like these,” Martin said. “It’s like the ‘Angels of Mercy’ that bring something to drink, assistance to stand up and other things for athletes after they have crossed the finish line.

“A lot of communities are helping out,” she said. “Madawaska and Fort Kent loaned school buses, and flags of the countries participating are going up through Madawaska. People from many communities are helping.”

Along with the individual volunteers, several contractors have helped out with employees, equipment and materials. Several companies are motivating employees to help.

The effort to find volunteers started in April 2003, but the majority signed up from November to January. Most, like Martin, have full-time jobs besides working for the event.

The volunteers selected for the work are all uniformed. They wear dark- and light-blue winter jackets, Adidas hats, and black ski pants. The jackets and shirts are paid for by Banknorth, the sponsor of volunteers.

“It’s a big effort,” Martin said. “I didn’t realize it was this big when I started this. These volunteers are proud people, people who want to do a good job.

“Athletes who have been here in the past have been impressed,” she said. “We have a reputation here that is becoming worldwide in the biathlon community.”

Some of the volunteers work at the Maine Winter Sports Center’s 10th Mountain Division Lodge and grounds year-round.

“It would be impossible to have something of this magnitude without them,” she said.