By Sarah Gordon
The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA.)
Copyright 2007 The Press Enterprise, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
When the Riverside City Fire Department held its annual written exam in September, Capt. Lawayne Hearn said about 500 people tested for 15 open firefighter positions — a healthy turnout.
But for the same number of open firefighter positions requiring paramedic certification, only 85 people showed.
Those numbers reflect a trend reported by fire departments across the region and the state. As more departments require some or all of their entry-level firefighters to be qualified paramedics, demand for qualified applicants has increased to the point that departments are struggling to fill vacancies.
“Everyone’s heard there’s a nurse shortage, but there’s also a paramedic shortage, not only in California, but across the country,” said Chris Nollette, the director of emergency medical services programs at Riverside Community College.
This shortage affects fire departments gravely, explained Nollette, because, in the past decade, the mission of most of them has changed to include providing a high level of emergency medical services.
Paramedics can administer medications, give injections, start IVs and insert breathing tubes.
By contrast, non-paramedic firefighters, who are typically EMT-certified, provide only basic care, like CPR or positioning an injured patient.
Because fire engines usually arrive at emergencies ahead of ambulances, having firefighters who are also paramedics means critical patient care begins sooner.
Some departments, such as Norco in 1999 and Murrieta in 2000, were ordered by elected leaders to hire only paramedic-firefighters. Other departments in the past few years, including San Bernardino City and Cal Fire/Riverside County, have adopted almost as strict a rule, with an eye to putting a paramedic on every engine.
The change came, explained Nollette, because nationally the incidence of fire has dropped dramatically in the last 30 years. About 80 percent of all calls firefighters respond to are for medical aid.
According to National Fire Protection Association statistics, firefighters responded to 3,264,000 fires in 1977, but fewer than half as many in 2005.
“Fire departments have done such a great job with preventative measures, but partly because of an aging population, we continue to have a rise in injuries and deaths,” Nollette said.
The increased demand to hire from a limited pool of paramedics prevents fire departments from being as selective as conventional hiring wisdom once dictated.
“We used to use the 10 percent rule,” Murrieta Fire Chief Paul Christman said. “We wanted to process 1,000 people to get the cream of the crop.”
All fire departments have a screening and winnowing process that usually includes an application, written test, medical and background screening and an interview.
But starting two years ago, when his department began hiring only firefighter-paramedics, Christman found that he must look seriously at much more than 10 percent of applicants if he expects to fill openings.
Both Hearn and Christman said the relatively small pool has not affected the quality of their entry-level firefighters.
But some departments have felt the pinch.
Twice in the past four years San Bernardino City has been unable to fill its open paramedic-firefighter positions, said Division Chief Mat Fratus, in charge of training and emergency medical services.
“We put recruits through a lot of different stages of testing,” Fratus said. “We couldn’t get enough people through to fill our spots.”
Many fire chiefs say it’s no surprise the firefighter-paramedic pool is limited.
Paramedics must work as an EMT for a year before they can be accepted to a paramedic program at community colleges or private schools.
These programs take between six and 14 months to complete, and additionally, most fire departments also require applicants to have completed a 12-week fire academy.
In one recent recruitment for eight open positions, 15 people showed up for the written test, Palm Springs Chief Blake Goetz said. He hired eight people from that pool, but had to release three of them during their probationary period.
“What we find is the candidates are weak on fire skills because they’ve been working on an ambulance for so long or they are just out of paramedic school and fire academy,” Goetz said.
He forecasted intense training would help new-hires be more successful.
Riverside County Deputy Director for Public Health Michael Osur said, despite the problems that hiring paramedic-firefighters may introduce to fire departments, he was thrilled that so many departments around the region had added them in the past few years.
In the event of emergencies with many victims, such as pandemics, terrorist attacks, natural disasters or even multiple car crashes, numerous first-responders would now be on the scene to expertly treat victims.
“We now have tons more paramedics than we ever had before,” he said. Emergency care can begin before an ambulance arrives.
Dan Kaufman, former president of the California Firefighter’s Association, said over the next five years, about 40 percent of the state’s firefighters would either retire or change professions, and it would become increasingly difficult to fill paramedic-firefighter positions in the face of the increased demand.
Natalie Hunmann, interim director of fire technology at Riverside Community College, said the job outlook, both for paramedic-firefighters and firefighters, was better than she had seen in 21 years.
She said landing an entry-level job would still be competitive and might require more training than in the past but it would still be worth the effort.
“The job is one of the best in the world,” she said.
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