#real fire protocol

[hmslusitania]

Question - are firefighters allowed to carry their personal items with them (wallet/phone/etc) or are they supposed to leave them at the station during calls?

From my stepdad direct!

[hmslusitania]

I’ve done so many internet deep dives into the RL rules, and other firefighter shows only to conclude that 911’s lieutenants exist but they’re just in the background somewhere 🤷🏻‍♀️ (to be used in off hand fic remarks when required)

But I still find it funny something you said the other day about how the truck driver/engine driver is meant to stay with the vehicle so Jinx could have been avoided if they’d been following the regs 😂 awful time to have gone for a whizz John!!

You mean this post?

I am as guilty as the writers of the show at being pretty lax about regs when it comes to fic because, eh, maybe the fictional LAFD that exists in 9-1-1 has different rules than the actual real life department, and sometimes you’ve gotta do stuff for dramatic effect.

But if it’s stuff I know because of growing up with my dad? I can’t. I can’t do it. They’ve got 24 hour shifts. They start at 8am. They end at 8am. Things get wishy-washy when you’re covering part of a shift for someone or on medical light duty or you’re a probie but for the most part! 8-8.

If you’re driving the rig you do not get out of the rig. My dad had a guy on his shift who’s been a firefighter for 13 years and he’s NEVER BEEN IN A STRUCTURE FIRE because he’s always the driver.

You’re not going to find out about getting stuck with the christmas shift a month beforehand, you get your shift schedule at the start of the year. And like, yeah, maybe they do that differently at the LAFD maybe their local has a different system than my dad’s, but like. In general, scheduled well ahead of time.

This got rantier than it needed to 🤦‍♀️

[hmslusitania]

What does ‘A’ shift mean?

So fire stations are organised through shifts, and there’s the shift captain — usually either an actual officially ranked Captain or a lieutenant (or if you were my dad’s station, they had captains running each shift for Union compensation reasons) — and then all the crew.

The 118 as far as I’ve been able to figure out, Bobby is the captain of the station and the only captain there, so he’s both shift captain for the A shift and in charge of the whole house. There have to be unseen lieutenants who are in charge of B and C and maybe D shifts (no idea how many shifts they have) who are Bobby’s immediate underlings.

If Chim is going to head toward becoming Captain Han, his first move would be the lieutenant’s exam which could add some interesting dynamic tension.

But mostly! A Shift and then B Shift (which Ravi is officially on) and C Shift are just the ways you’re broken down for scheduling stuff. In my dad’s station, he was the house captain but was on B Shift of his own wishes (I guess because he likes the letter? Idk) and he didn’t tend to take the cream of the crop firefighters, he tended to take the probies and the people no one else could get along with, because he was the house captain and often times the Union President so it was his job to keep peace.

I am sure its clear that this is all secondhand information that came from growing up with a firefighter for a father so if anyone with a more immediate connection to the service has corrections, take their word over mine

[hmslusitania]

I get the whole "That's NOT HOW THIS WORKS" thing.

Once upon a time I was the HIPAA compliance officer for the place I worked. The first thing that kept hitting my brain when the doctor told Eddie that she wasn't expecting to see him again so soon was "he could have your ass fired now if he wanted to".

I know that hospital based medical shows use and forget things like HIPAA whenever it's convenient for the plot, but I always twitch a bit. Especially in a situation where it was obvious that Eddie was working. He was in his uniform and pushing a damn gurney with a patient for heaven's sake.

Oh totally. Real rules and regulations exist when it’s convenient in shows like this and that suspension of disbelief is the cost of admission to watching procedural dramas.

Also, I’m genuinely curious, since she didn’t say anything to indicate he was a patient she’d seen and there were no specifics and they could’ve met literally anywhere based on what she said, was it a HIPAA violation? I don’t know what level of information counts. Like obviously it would’ve happened in the show regardless and was necessary to prompt concerned husband!Buck (my two favourite guys tbh — jealous petty!Eddie and concerned husband!Buck, may they coexist on screen soon) but I genuinely do not know how much in violation of HIPAA what she said is

[hmslusitania]

I have a question and feel free not to answer if its too much but how much do firefighters actually make in real life? Other than Eddie struggling in the beginning, money doesn't seem to be an issue for any of the 118?

It's highly variable. It depends on where you work and your seniority and how much overtime you take on, etc, etc.

But according to the website "joinlafd.org" the answer is:

Salary

Effective July 5, 2020: $74,687 - $104,086.

Recruits will receive full pay, medical, and dental benefits during the Academy. A bilingual bonus is not available in the Academy, but may be available upon completion of probation.

I googled for the "starting LAFD salary" and this is where I was directed (I would count that 25.5k difference as "highly variable"). I am assuming this is not the take-home amount any of the starting firefighters would bring, since there's insurance premiums and taxes (anyone know if CA has income tax?) and retirement funds etc. And then there's LA rent to consider which, yikes, and in Eddie's case he's got extra medical expenses in addition to extra insurance premiums because he has a dependent.

So, no, if this is the starting salary, firefighting is a decently middle class job and the majority of our characters would probably not worry about money as a day-to-day issue, although we're shown in Ocean's 9-1-1 that everyone could still use a little financial boost, but who amongst us couldn't?

I absolutely maintain that there's no way Buck could afford his apartment without Hollywood magic or a trustfund though

Also! You can find all answers about real fire protocol under that tag here on my blog for other asks about stuff like this.

[hmslusitania]

this is maybe a dumb question and i honestly probably knew the answer at one point but do firefighters wear their regular boots inside their black and yellow turnout boots

I happen to be having coffee with my stepdad at this moment, Anon, so I asked him and the answer is No.

Turnout boots are custom fit, so no, you do not wear your uniform boots inside them.

[hmslusitania]

sorry for being generally uneducated about fire crew shifts and feel free to ignore this, but if they have 24 hour shifts, how does that work on a weekly basis? like one day on, one day off? one day on, two days off? like what do you think their schedule is?

It really depends!

My dad’s very rural department had a rule against working more than a 48 (two shifts back to back) but in busier places like LA I wouldn’t be surprised if they had stricter regs than that.

The standard family ribbing we always sent at him was “you work nine days a month” which is..roughly two days a week. But the frequency varied, right, so sometimes he’d work one day on, two days off, one day on, four days off, etc.

It gets messy and weird but generally your best bet is to assume it would be rare for them to work two days in a row. If they’re working Saturday, they’re not working Sunday unless they’re doing a shift trade for someone. They might work Monday, but they wouldn’t work Tuesday.

I hope this helps!

[hmslusitania]

i’m in a similar situation, one of my parents works adjacent to emergency services (ie they work a 9-5 but work closely with fire/police/ems, and have some overlapping policies re: vacation and other hr stuff) and the amount of times i watch shows like 911 and just cringe because that’s not how it works!! i know there’s the whole ✨hollywood magic✨ about it but like urgh

As my dad pointed out when I convinced him to watch the show, the Hollywood-isation of it all does make for some enjoyable television at least.

Honestly his biggest complaint is that their kitchen is over the app bay and in season one they didn’t have the exhaust hoses attached to any of the rigs when they were parked (the yellow scrunching things that hang from the ceiling) and every time he complains about it, it kinda makes me laugh because they hosted barbecues from their app bay all the time at his station but oh well.