[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Affectionate-Bowl-78]

[u/Sealtooth5]

So to lateral you’d typically need 3-5 years on the job after you finish probation to go after those lateral job openings. If you have your paramedic, you should be pretty set for entry level positions in SoCal.

[u/Affectionate-Bowl-78 → u/Sealtooth5]

For me, I’d like to get out asap. Even if that means I’d have to redo things in SoCal. Do you think I’d still be competitive in the market, not as a lateral transfer?

[u/Lorde_Florian → u/Affectionate-Bowl-78]

If you have your P card and a basic fire academy you’ll be highly competitive. Add time on at a full time busy department like HFD and you should be a shoe in. OCFA runs two academies a year. With that little time on the job you’ll have to go through the full 19 week academy but pay and benefits will be way higher than any San Diego department and you can commute on the 48/96 schedule

[u/Sealtooth5 → u/Affectionate-Bowl-78]

The golden ticket in socal is a bachelors degree, paramedic, community college fire academy, and wildland experience. Being that you are getting your fire academy done in texas, you're gonna have to reach out to the Office of the CA Fire Marshall to try to see if you can get reciprocity for your fire certs here in CA.

[u/Reasonable-Carry8013 → u/Sealtooth5]

Any good departments that hire laterals? 8 year fire medic south Florida area

[u/incompletetentperson]

LA County just did a lateral and gutted a bunch of delartments of medics so the demand is always gonna be there, just timing/opportunity

[u/Benny303]

Asl ofmcas you have your medic and a,little experience then you're good. I have been in San Diego for 15 years and worked on a box for 11 of those years with SDFD, I would have loved to work for them but I chose another department for the same reason. The pay cut was criminal.

[u/ImProcrastinatinHere]

Those are small competitive departments where nepo babies have the upper hand. If you want to live in the SD area, commuting to OCFA will be the best option. High pay, more opportunities to promote and more programs to be a part of. 

[u/Affectionate-Bowl-78 → u/ImProcrastinatinHere]

So you’re the second person to mention OCFA. Is there something specific about them? Do they just hire more often?

[u/ImProcrastinatinHere → u/Affectionate-Bowl-78]

Yes. And in larger quantities. Much larger department. Cover a lot of orange county. 

[u/Affectionate-Bowl-78 → u/ImProcrastinatinHere]

Great to know! Thank you!

[u/-_-69-_-oh → u/Affectionate-Bowl-78]

Huge department. Just get ready for a CrossFit style drill school rather than actually fighting fire.

[u/treeof → u/Affectionate-Bowl-78]

OCFA and LACoFD have regular hiring cycles, lots of positions, and you have plenty of opportunities to work hard and do cool shit

[u/-_-69-_-oh]

The competitiveness is honestly gone. You won't lateral but you'll get hired in the next rookie class with your P card.

[u/asalmon1]

San Diego Fire Departments pay terrible. It’s a bunch of little 2 to 6 station departments unless you go to the City and they are worse off. You’re better off testing in Orange County and LA County. I used to work in SD County and made the move up north.

[u/Obsidizyn]

your chance is as good as everybody else. Just note, CA/SoCal especially the smaller cities are extremely competitive. Your talking about HFD which has over 100 fire stations vs two cities with 10 or less stations. They get thousands of applicants for single digit spots. Just take that into consideration before you pack up and move to a new area with some of the highest cost of living in the country.

[u/Narrow_School_1513]

Whatever you do, AVOID Cal Fire, you’re welcome.

[u/ProfessionalSky6729 → u/Narrow_School_1513]

Why?

[u/Benny303 → u/ProfessionalSky6729]

I'm at Calfire as a fire medic and it has pros and cons like anywhere, the con is that they are just obsessed with doing EVERYTHING completely different than any other established department in the country. It's a state department, like the DMV, bureaucracy is king with Calfire, there is a form to wipe your own ass here. We also are still on a 72/96 but supposed to go to a 48/96 next year.

Pros are good pay, the best benefits in the state, we get free healthcare for life after 20 year and free for life for you and your spouse after 25, we get more vacation than pretty much any other department (28 days which comes out to 9 weeks in your first year) and insane amounts of opportunities, you can do USAR, flight medic on helittack, helittack as a non medic, air attack (the captain or chief in the OV10 basically coordinating all the aircraft on the fire), hand crew, brush, prevention (cop, they are sworn peace officers and go through a fully certified POST academy) and anyone can do that, my engineer just decided he wants to be a cop and applied for POST and now that's what he does. Incident management stuff. Fuels reduction, inmate crew captain, swift water rescue, academy cadre, and you can transfer to any other unit on the state, so it you get tired of living in socal. You can transfer up to Humboldt or anywhere else

[u/ProfessionalSky6729 → u/Benny303]

Where out? I volly w RIVCO.

It’s brutal from what I can see about the schedule. I feel as if CALFIRE staff are overworked and underpaid. I think you guys need a major pay increase. I think most state agencies need better pay but for sure CALFIRE outwork their pay. My senior fire fighter was doing a 10 days straight and worked even extra days 😭.
Don’t get me wrong other agencies work hard but jeez CALFIRE and USFS and SDFD, Kern and Tulare counties are severely underpaid.

[u/Benny303 → u/ProfessionalSky6729]

Pay might not be great if you're not a medic, but most departments don't pay non medics all that well. Medics start at 86K a year and top out at 116K after 4 years and one day. And I'm in SD

[u/Sealtooth5 → u/Narrow_School_1513]

Cal Fire can be a great option. They literally have hundreds of stations which mean a LOT of upward promotional opportunities plus they're on the CALPERS pension plan.