Volunteer Firefighter

Life Hacking
1

Hi everyone,

Does anyone here have experience as a Volunteer Firefighter?

I currently have an office job, and while I have no complaints about the workload, stress levels, or compensation, I often feel unfulfilled and bored.

I’m a very active and outdoorsy person who enjoys physical activities and spending time in nature. I’m 40 years old, married with two young children (1 and 3 years old), and I’m on track to reach financial independence in about 5–6 years.

Recently, I noticed that my local fire department (in Canton Ticino) is looking for volunteer firefighters. This really caught my attention, as it’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing. I can genuinely see myself in that role.

If anyone has experience with volunteer firefighting—or knows more about it—I’d greatly appreciate any insights you can share, especially regarding:

  • Requirements

  • Working hours

  • Nature of the job

  • Compensation (if any)

  • Anything else worth knowing

Thanks in advance!

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2

I’m not involved, but know people that are. They’ve been doing that years and are in some kind of leadership position.

They do spend a few days per year for mandatory training and exercise, social events and are on call for emergencies, which can come at the most inconvenient time and not only includes saving kittens from trees (fires, traffic accidents etc.)

As far as I know, there’s some small compensation here, and your employer might need to give you time off.

Most likely, there’s big regional differences, so I’d just reach out to your local department and ask there. Probably, they also have some open-house or recruiting day, or some information online.

Not sure about requirements beyond the time commitment and good health.

1 Like
3

Hi,

I am a volunteer in Kanton Aargau, so I can’t speak for Ticino.

How it works here:
-To join, it was a simple interview with some questionnaire. For the general service, no special fitness requirements (except if you tick some boxes on the questionnaire, they will assume you are fit, otherwise they can send you to a doctor.

-mandatory planned training according to your function. So you have general service for everyone, than the guys who can wear respiratory protection (to go into the smokey buildings - I am doing that), the pioneer group for accidents, machinists to drive the trucks, electricians etc. According to the group you have different trainings. For me it is 4 trainings for the general service (common for everyone), + 8 trainings for the respiratory mask. Normally, you have 3-4 dates per training so you can accomodate easily with your private plans.

-For joining the respiratory mask group, I had a special fitness test and checkup with a doctor. Nothing crazy, just had to to 3 or 3.5 W/kg on a indoor trainer and a quick checkup. Cool thing: you get your HR zones for cycling for free including a mini training plan if you want to improve. Every year we do some fitness parcours in full gear (nothing crazy again).

-I get alarms via phone (call and SMS, stating what it is and where). You just jump and go, no time to think (really cool in meetings which are boring). In our case, we assemble in the barracks, change there and go. Some towns, they have their stuff at home and come equipped directly to the place (must be a shit for parking).You say when you have holidays, but of course they understand that sometimes, it is not possible for you (you are drinking with friends etc.). Basically they expect that if you are in the vicinity sober, and not professionaly bound you come. In my case, my workplace encourages to go and pays the time in service as normal salary (on top of the compensation we get for the service, see below).

For normal people who do not have an officer role, the financial reward (next to having actually a fun sexy job) is quite interesting:
-20 CHF(or was it 25)/h for the trainings (mostly in the evening for 2h sessions)
-50 CHF/h for alarms for each started hour. An alarm with a real fire is easily several hours
-a compensation per day for special trainings (I had 2 days of “introduction training” when I started, plus a one day introduction training for the respiratory mask). I think it is about 250 CHF/d, can’t remember.
-you don’t pay firefighter tax in Aargau (300 CHF/y maximum)

All these figures are net, no AHV and taxes. (for officer roles they get some Pauschale per year, after some limit it gets taxed, but this is not in my scope). In general, I am between 2000-3000 CHF extra net income, since I am in the position to be able to go to a lot of alarms (employer in the same town, no issue with him going). Real stuff is about 5 times a year, mostly it is false alarms.

So basically you get a new hobby, you get paid for it, trainings are fun and you learn a bunch of new stuff. Also, a lot of new contacts, private and professional, since everyone is coming from different backgrounds.

16 Likes
4

I’d suggest you get a better job first and then check age limits for new firefighters in your village second

5

Hi Patirou,

Thank you so much for all info, very interested and useful.

Currently due to family situation I would not be able to have a great commitment, but hopefully it will be possible to join then in a couple of years.

Thank you again

6

Sounds cool, and also commendable, and potentially useful for networking. I assume though that Swiss German is mandatory given in any stressful situation you can’t be faffing with language barriers, right?

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German is fine, English is not. We have some people with foreign background who have more like broken German.

You will have to know, but I don’t feel that showing up 4-5 times a year for an evening training + some alarms a great commitment. If you are in a village, you won’t have that many alarms. I am in a town, with some special support functions, so it is more often than usual.

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Good morning,

On September the 2nd it will take place the meeting for informing people that may be interested.

I live in a small village, being the firestation in the village near mine (also small, mainly apartment for holidays), 5 min on bike.

I will go to see all the details and will share them here

Thanks again

1 Like
9

Do you know the main differencies between Urban and Mountain typology?

10

Depending on what climate change has in petto for us, you might need to deal more with natural events than us (which is not entirely true, in the last 2 years we had 2 pretty consequential minor climate events - half nights of pumping water out of cellars).

On the countryside you will have less automatic fire alarms → so less false alarms (kind of crazy how often they go off for nothing). Otherwise pretty similar, except that small FF are struggling even more with getting enough people, especially during daytime when everyone is in the nearest city/town for work.

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11

This is an interesting topic. Thanks for the details about this activity, @Patirou. In my town (Canton of Fribourg), there is a program for volunteer firefighters. However, the municipality charges a tax of CHF 100 on each resident (who is eligible for the service) who is not a volunteer firefighter. Everyone must help the fire service, either as a volunteer or as a taxpayer.

I know people who are volunteers and who appreciate this service. I’ve never thought about it, even though I’m very athletic and it could be interesting. Unfortunately, I can’t apply because I work on the other side of Switzerland. I’ll think about it in a few years.

Good luck if you are thinking about getting involved!

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Are you sure, this shouldn’t be a problem ? We even got pilots in service and it is clear that they won’t be able to join while being in the sky somewhere. Of course it is different if you are actually not living there.

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In my case, I work in St. Gallen during the week and I’m only at home on weekends. It seems difficult to reconcile this issue, but I will inquire, particularly with people who are volunteers, to get their feedback.

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Ya as a Wochenaufenthalter can be difficult and understandable they do not want.

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In Aargau I believe they will only let you start if you are younger than 44. Expectations for general firefighters are not very high, you should be able to join even with only basic language skills. It’s a great war to improve your social skills and might be helpful if you wann to apply for citizenship.

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I suggest you may still want to ask about the practicalities. As a data point, I’m a volunteer firefighter, and our kids are 2, 4 and 6. I know others in the same situation.

18

Thank you Brice,

On the 2nd September I will attend to the information meeting, will find all the details there.

For curiosity, how many times (lets say per week or month) are you requested, how long do the alarms last, and at what time of the day are more common, also week days or week ends?

I know it depends a lot based on the town, but just in order to have some feeling.

Thank you

19

About one intervention per month, about 1H per intervention, except one or two huge intervention per year which may take a half day. For me this year:

  • Mon 13 Jan @ 14:15: House front on fire, a bit under 2H .
  • Fri 7 Feb @ 14:59: Whole house on fire (this one was huge, but I couldn’t go :face_with_crossed_out_eyes: )
  • Sun 23 Feb @ 12:40: Container fire, about 1H
  • Thur 13 Mar @ 08:46: Gaz leak, about 1H.
  • 22 Apr @ 20:56: False alarm, under an hour.
  • 26 Jul @ 23:37: Parked car on fire (noone inside), about 1H.

Officers have have about double of that, as when there is only the need for 1 or 2 persons they send the officers (eg: animal rescue).

In my village, there is (to simplify) a partnership with the private firefighters of a local company. We volunteers also get the business hours requests (as seen in the list above), but we are most needed outside of business hours.

If it’s like us you’ll join the exercises for a year or so before you actually get offered to enroll in the official training and become oncall. That should help you get a feeling of it matches your constraints.

2 Likes
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Thank you so much for the details.

I was expecting much more interventions. If it is like that, I should not have any issue in term of timing to managing it.

Thank you

21

Some fire departments have an log on their website. Maybe your fire department has one too.