Quote (Noun @ Dec 28 2018 05:59pm)
Do u actually “fight” fires nonstop? I’d imagine 70% of that 300 hours is just sitting around staffing the fire station or rescuing cats from trees
Cats from trees? what is this 1970.. get out of here with that shit.
and no, most of our calls are EMS. So those happen all day and all night pretty much. The rest of the calls; car accidents, gas leaks, elevator rescues, fires, water rescues ... stuff like that, we take them as they come, they are weekly but EMS is the bulk of any fire department(most).
Quote (Noun @ Dec 28 2018 06:19pm)
I’m just curious. I have a friend who is a firefighter. He seems to have lots of free time based on how many snapchat messages he sends out on a daily basis
Well they either dont run EMS and/or he works in a very low volume area. Like I said, we did over 4,000 calls this year. Thats a lot, would be curious to know how many calls he did just as comparison.
It is rare, but some departments dont run ems(they arent emts/paramedics) JUST firefighters, and the city/town/whatever it is, pays someone else to run EMS. Departments like this are not common anymore, but they do exist.
That is not the case where I work, we run EMS and we are all emts/paramedics.
Quote (XxRunNakedxX @ Dec 28 2018 06:24pm)
And they do, they'll work on training, maintenance of gear/vehicles, etc during the time they aren't actively on calls
We have Roll Call at 7:30, then everyday every truck/rig needs to be checked and every piece of equipment, then we clean the station. We have daily EMS training, Fire Training few times a week, inspections... whatever else needs to be done. (training, especially EMS refreshing is very important. Its impossible to learn the skills to be a paramedic one time and remember it forever, we are always refreshing/learning so we know what to do on a call. We can literally stick a needle into someones chest or shock people or push drugs that stop your heart. These things require constant refreshing/re-learning). At 3PM you are allowed to go to the gym and workout. 4pm is considered 'end of duty day' and you can change out of your duty uniform and put on shorts or sweatpants and shit. Sunday is a 'down day' But remember there are average 10+ calls a day during all this time and after 4pm and well into the night.
Does that mean from 7:30am-4:00pm we work nonstop/train nonstop. NO, there is of course some downtime in between, and we will sit in the day room and relax in a recliner and watch tv or nap or whatever it is. Somedays its all work, somedays its half work/some days half work half relaxing/some days its all relaxing, but therese still 10 calls to be done everyday. And around the holidays its all 'down time'. Second week in Jan we will kick back up to our regular routine.