Fire Department Work

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juliac

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Hi there

Can you work as an emt-b for a fire department and not be a FF??
 
it depends on the FD. Some do single role, some double.
 
From what I've seen, no. In my experience all personnel in a fire department are generally required to be qualified as a FF. Even as a volunteer all the places I've checked require you to meet the minimum training levels for a FF.
 
There are a few down here that will hire you as a paramedic if you don't have your fire cert. However, they'll typically put them through the fire academy pretty quick after that.

Never heard of an FD hiring just a basic without a fire cert.
 
It depends where you live. We only have 1 county in the Northern VA area that still keeps their fire and EMS separate, and that probably wont last much longer. Everyone else has fire based EMS so it is required to go through the fire academy after getting hired.

Other parts of the country have FDs that keep the two separate as well, just do some Googling and see what your local departments require.
 
juliac said:
Hi there

Can you work as an emt-b for a fire department and not be a FF??
Click to expand...

Never seen it in my region... however I have advocated it... If 75% of FIRE calls are medical, then it is something that volunteer-poor Departments should consider, IMHO. Invest in an SUV at every station for medical aids... bring people on board for medical, PSAs, and some rescues (anything non-fire). This system would give the community more human resources and be a resume builder for new EMTs looking for a career in EMS and not FIRE.

That said... will never happen around here...
 
Here on Long Island just about every fire department has EMS only members.
 
juliac said:
Hi there

Can you work as an emt-b for a fire department and not be a FF??
Click to expand...

Where are you from? If we know what area you're asking about, we may be able to give you a better answer than "It depends!".

Dan
 
Many volunteer or paid on call fire departments have EMS only members since they often times can't have everyone trained in both fields and maintain a sizable roster. If someone wants to volunteer their time there is no sense sending them to (expensive) training that they don't even want.

Career departments may also utilize EMS only members but I think you will find this fairly uncommon no matter where you are.
 
And very uncommon for BLS providers. I just saw an ad for Baltimore city hiring for single-role medics, but even then they were going to be trained as ffs and just assigned to the medic unit for their entire career.
 
I'm a volunteer at my local fire/EMS, and I'm just an EMT. I just got my EMT though, and I've been a volunteer there for a couple years now.
 
I haven't heard of any paid department hiring EMT-Bs as single roll providers. Medics, yes. EMTs, no.

Like everyone said even if you get hired for an EMS only position you will still probably be sent through a FF academy.

It's tough for paramedics with no fire training or experience to get hired at fire departments, let alone EMTs.
 
There are a few volunteer Fire Companies in New Jersey that do not require a person to be FF in order to ride on rescue. Much like Trigger said, many places can't expect someone who is volunteering their time to cross train in two different fields as it is very time consuming and costly.

I used to be on a Fire Company like that, and unfortunately there was a lot of tension between Fire personnel and the non-FF EMS personnel. Half of our EMS roster were cross-trained personnel, and many of our officers felt like we should be a fully FF department and not allow non-FF personnel to join. The biggest issue with that was staffing our FF guys to ride EMS, as we all get excited and prefer to ride the engine instead of rehab or rescue. So many times our FF/EMS guys would only ride the minimum required amount of shifts to stay on rescue.
 
Why not give fire a try, it is not a bad gig.
 
abckidsmom said:
Fun, too. Except for that 4,000 foot lay we had to take up last week.

At least it wasn't 12 degrees.
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4,000 foot lay, who did you piss off :)

I am amazed you guys have that much hose.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sandog said:
4,000 foot lay, who did you piss off :)

I am amazed you guys have that much hose.
Click to expand...

There was "no place to turn around" at the end of the 3/4 mile long driveway.

It was 3 trucks worth of hose. The first engine laid in, the second engine did a reverse lay from the end of the line, and the last engine laid in to be the midway pumper.

For a house, on the ground when people first marked on scene. Neighbors had smelled smoke all day.

It defined PITA.
 
I'm actually working with a small FD that is considering splitting out EMS to form it's own division. As a trial basis they are hiring some EMT's and Medics PRN to run the box and see how it works.
 
In Indiana there are quite a few departments (both Ft and PT and some volunteer) that have have EMS only, both ALS and BLS.
Why make someone go through fire school and then assign them to the ambulance for 20 years? seems like a waste of money and time, but just my opinion.

I started out as a EMT-B on a volunteer dept in Indianapolis; after a few years they went combination, FT & PT. Still kept the EMS only section; (or you could do both) then after a couple of more years they started hiring EMT-B's and P's to man the Ambulances, but they were still just EMS
 
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