Retained firefighter

Wholetime firefighters do not usually respond to emergencies during the time when they are off duty, unless there are under dual contract arrangements. Generally, wholetime[5] or full-time firefighters do not respond to calls when they are off-duty as they are assigned to a watch on permanent shifts. However, most retained firefighters can only provide cover at set times due to their full-time employment commitments. For example, it may be that some personnel can provide cover during the day in any given week or only evenings and weekends per week. Often it is a mixture of both.

In Ireland, some on-call firefighters were summoned by means of an air raid-type siren mounted on the local fire station. Now they are all on a pager system, either controlled locally in the case of Cork and Dublin, or by a regional control centre (CAMP) in the rest of the country.

Unlike many volunteer firefighters in the United States, retained firefighters are not permitted to use emergency lights or sirens on their personal vehicles. When they drive to the fire station, they must obey normal road traffic laws at all times whilst en route. The British government reviewed the situation in 2008, but decided that to give every retained firefighter a blue light would effectively "dilute" the importance of blue lights. Most importantly, use of blue lights by retained staff may cause confusion for local road users, particularly where multiple vehicles would be responding to a particular fire station from several directions at once.

In the UK, retained firefighters are responsible for undertaking community fire safety work alongside their full-time colleagues. This involves talks to local school children, home safety checks, and fitting of free smoke detectors in homes.

Some RDS fire stations receive hundreds of call-outs per year, comparable or sometimes greater than some full-time fire stations. Other RDS stations receive a relatively small number of call-outs. Some fire and rescue services employ a system known as "day manning" or "day staffing", where the fire station is operated by a full-time watch during the day and covered by retained firefighters at night.

Whole-time firefighters attend training school for an initial period of 13–20 weeks, depending on the fire and rescue service they have joined. On-call firefighters now undertake the same training modules as full-time recruits, spread over a greater period of time due to full-time employment job commitments. The new National Firefighter Training Syllabus is now widely-adopted and consists of a three-week "core skills" module, a two-week breathing apparatus module, a one-week HAZMAT module, a one-week road traffic collision module, plus several weekend trauma care/EMT and first aid courses. On completion of this, firefighters then enter an on station development stage over a three-year period, once they have completed their development stage they then become competent and receive a higher level of pay. The modules are also backed up by ongoing training on station in multi-disciplined roles, procedures and equipment. However, many fire services do not allow retained firefighters to transfer directly to wholetime firefighter without completing a full 13-week new recruits course.

In December 2003, recognising the need for a review of the retained duty system, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the department responsible for fire and resilience at that time, called for a report. Published in February 2005, it noted:

The system of flexible local fire cover needs to attract a new pool of applicants who would not have considered the opportunity previously. The recruitment problems stem in part from the level of pay, the lack of a pension, the lack of development opportunities and the often inflexible availability system.'[6]

As well as responding to emergency calls and undertaking community fire safety initiatives, retained firefighters attend weekly training nights (aka "drill nights") of two to three hours per week to maintain competency levels. They must also undertake routine checks on their equipment and fire appliance, as well as test, clean and maintain the equipment to ensure it will work properly when required during an emergency. To allow retained firefighters to boost their earnings, some retained stations are involved in co-responder schemes, whereby fire crews act as first responders providing first aid prior to the attendance of paramedics.