Quote:
Originally Posted by deanp
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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Most of the towns around here do something like this. It seems to work well and they have good response times...
Now the airforce firefighters.... Some of those guys don't do schit! My uncle works at a place that the airforce uses for T&G practice etc... Its in a low air traffic zone and a very long run way. They get paid 16hr days and roll on a few calls a year. Those are usually bird strikes or smoke in cabin. They've not had a crash or real fire in 20+ years...