r/Firefighting • u/iheartMGs FF/EMT/Hazmat Tech • Apr 21 '25

Ask A Firefighter Are you at your forever department?

EDIT: I really appreciate all the feedback from everyone! Pretty cool to hear all the different responses! Stay safe brothers/sisters and wish everyone the best of luck throughout your careers!

Title says it all. Curious how many members have found their forever depts and why you made it your home for the rest of your career. The culture at my department is simply amazing. The chiefs know every member by first name and your put into a leadership role pretty early on if you’ve earned the trust of the officers. They will send you to virtually any training, deploy you across the nation, etc. Let’s hear what you have.

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u/FrostyHoneyBun Industrial FF/EMT Apr 21 '25 edited Apr 22 '25

Absolutely not,

For context I am a contracted firefighter for a industrial plant, it’s not the worst thing in the world but I’m not really too big a fan of how shitty our equipment is, super low call volume and just how it’s ran as a department as well. I can probably write a book about all the things wrong but I’ll digress, trying to get onto a municipal department.

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u/iheartMGs FF/EMT/Hazmat Tech Apr 21 '25

Sorry to hear that man; I don’t even know the first thing about being a contractor FF. How’d you decide to do that? Shitty equipment is no good either.

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u/FrostyHoneyBun Industrial FF/EMT Apr 22 '25

Wanted to get a job in the fire service, this contractor had a pretty quick hiring process and would allow me to continue to go to EMT school, they knew I was trying to get on an outside department, and they paid honestly pretty decent, but the job isn’t horrible, a lot of the time is spent being paid to sleep or watch movies. We do get fires here and there and we also run med calls in the plant too. It’s a cushy little job but definitely not career worthy.

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u/HanjobSolo69 Recliner Operator Apr 22 '25

I can probably right a book

Well I'm not so sure about that.

All jokes aside, what is your schedule like? I have always been mildly interested in the industrial stuff.

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u/FrostyHoneyBun Industrial FF/EMT Apr 22 '25

Caught me there, I never said it was gonna be a good book!

The schedule can be weird or disorganized to some, especially if you are used to the 24/48 schedule, we work turns of 8s, we have a first shift, second shift and a third shift and a relief shift

1st shift is 11:30pm of the previous day to 7:30am of the next day

2nd shift 7:30am - 3:30pm

3rd shift 3:30pm - 11:30pm

Relief shift steps in on shifts where other shifts have days off.

We have our full time guys and part time guys as well, a lot of our part time guys are on career departments so they get mixed in the rotation as well. It’s all dependent on the contract and what the customer wants from the company I work for, our contract is bid out for the 8s while our sister site which is another industrial plant 45 minutes away works a 24/48 schedule. Its not too terrible when the schedule is correct, but when guys are going through classes or we have a guy quit the schedule has to accommodate which can be challenging, usually the newer guys have to pick up the slack so they have a couple 8 hour turnarounds or doubles.

Its a little difficult to explain but if you have any more questions about the schedule or what kinda goes on for sure let me know and I’ll do my best to explain lol