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Volunteer fire department personnel hold regular jobs, the response time to a call is dictated by how soon they can get to the station, and then respond. If my house is on fire, or I have a medical emergency or car accident I'd prefer to know professionals are on duty and ready to respond.
The town I grew up in had a paid department with 2 and then 3 people per shift, 2days, 2nights, 4 days off. Shifts were 8AM to 6PM and obviously 6PM to 8AM. They also had a call department that consisted of two groups - which got paid a nominal amount of money based on the percentage of calls they showed up for. The groups would alternate - one week of on call, then one week off call.
The normal department members also were responsible for the ambulance - First Reponders, EMTs, the works. If a car accident was bad enough, they would also tone the group.
I think a better trend would be to work towards eliminating pensions for all new municipal hires and eliminate that cost, but that is unlikely to happen.
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