station policy

[zippo99]

This is the story :

A belgian firefighter was fired because he refused to live in a range of 10 miles from his station, dispite of the stations regulation.
He went to court, and the judge ruled that, because everyone is free to choose where he wants to live, the discharge was invalid.

Question :
What is the policy in US-Stations about that?

[NFD159]

It varies from place to place, but most city Fire Departments require you to live in the city or within a certain radius.

[zippo99]

Right, in this case the judge ruled to the fighters benefit due to the fact that he is a prof. firefighter with a 24 hour shift every 2 days, so it realy didn't matter were he lived.
I agree with that, exept for vol.ff, cause they don't stay at the station.

[sxauer]

that is the reason that New Orleans fire department has been understaffed by about 150-250 firefighters. I would love to work for them, but they require you to live in Orleans Parish, and who would want to live there, much more, who could afford to live there in a good area. I never understood the domicile rule, it seems to me that many departments are loosing loads of qualified applicants. In my opinion, if you show up for duty on time, what does it matter where you live?

[zippo99]

We have the same problem in our vol.dep.
We are 19 FF short, and last year a husband and wife applied for a job, they live on the border of the next county, 7.5 mile from the station and were not allowed to join up.
I live in the same county as the station, but at 9 miles, and it was no prob to join up.

[Bones42]

Years back, someone was trying to become paid FF in Jersey City. Was not hired due to not living there. Reason given for having to live in area was due to off-duty callbacks. If you lived too far away, then it would take too long to get to job when called back.

Don't know if it's true now or even then, but it made some sense.

Anyone have any idea how many FDNY guys live in NYC? I know 4 that live in my town (60 miles away).

[E40FDNYL35]

After you pass both examinations for FDNY you must be a resident of NYC or Nassau, Westchester, Suffolk, Orange, Rockland or Putnam Counties

[Just a new name]

We have to live in the city or not over 3 miles from the border.

[Bones42]

E40FDNYL35, is this something new? Or can you move away after being hired? Kind of curious, not looking to get anyone in trouble.

[jaybird210]

More and more full-time departments are doing away with residency requirements, or expanding them out so far that they might as well not be there. Mostly for the reason sxauer mentioned. The big cities seem to be the only holdouts, probably because of a combination of desire to work there and enough housing mix to make it affordable. I know Chicago still requires you to be a city resident.

On our POC department, we only require that you live or work in the District, because as zippo mentioned, if you aren't here, you really can't respond....

[MattyJ]

Its been this way in NYC for a long time. Does it make sense? I dont know. Every now and then you hear about a guy who lives out of the area ( very far ) Is it worth risking your job over? If you dont want to live here, get a job where you want to live.

[HFDEXP777]

in our dept (vollie), you have to live in district or a surrounding district.

[ehs7554]

Luckily the dept. I work for allows us to live in a 17 mile and soon to be 25 mile radius of our headquarters station. What really gets me though, is how some dept's (KCMO I believe) require you to be a resident of the city just to apply. Seems these places could be cutting themselves short on good potential candidates.

[E40FDNYL35]

Originally posted by Bones42
E40FDNYL35, is this something new? Or can you move away after being hired? Kind of curious, not looking to get anyone in trouble.

ONLY FOR FIREFIGHTER JOB...EMS DIVISION CAN LIVE IN New Jersey
After you pass both examinations for FDNY Firefighter you must be a resident of NYC or Nassau, Westchester, Suffolk, Orange, Rockland or Putnam Counties

[Dalmatian90]

It does vary a bit, and how important it is I believe depends on how the department is organized.

Generally, most volunteer fire departments require you live or work either within their district or some reasonable response time to the station. There are a some vollie stations with enough calls to justify a "bunk-in" program for volunteers to pull shifts at the station, but those are certainly the exception than the rule. Residency rules, especially those based on response distance, are certainly reasonable for organizations that depend on calling in personnel.

Some small to mid-size career departments operate pretty much like an on-call department where everyone just happens to work full-time for the fire department, too. That is, if they have much of anything for an incident they rely on calling in off-duty firefighters to adequately handle the call. For those departments, residency rules are reasonable, and I've usually seen something like, "Within the city limits" or "Within 15 minutes of Headquarters."

Sometimes departments protect expensive resorts or remote areas it's tough to find enough help for, and those areas sometimes use 48 hour on/96 hour off schedules to reduce the number to times someone has to commute from a distant home to work.

Larger cities that seldom to never need to recall personnel have a harder time making a cogent arguement. Now sometimes it is in the firefighter's interest to live in the city -- that means they're voters and have more political clout. And some cities like employees local -- it keeps tax dollars in the community, and often public servants are among the more solid middle class citizens in the area.

Among the largest cities, at least residency for hiring is a common practice and frankly one that I support, even if not necessarily residency afterwards. Let's face it, firefighting is a good paying job that can be taught to someone with reasonable intelligence. Large cities like Chicago can and do draw large enough pools of applicants from within their own borders they don't need to open up recruitment. And using tax money to improve the lives of those paying the taxes (and if you buy goods in the city, pay rent, etc you're at the very least indirectly paying city taxes) is a good thing to do.

Matt