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Not true, especially in big city departments. Sure there are days when you run 3 or 4 calls and you get a lot of downtime, but most departments run 3000 or more calls a year. Do the math.

But yeah utilizing their downtime is smart. And you're gonna build a damn good ladder and not cut corners if you know you're going to be standing on it.

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> Sure there are days when you run 3 or 4 calls and you get a lot of downtime, but most departments run 3000 or more calls a year.

3000 calls a year is about 8 calls a day. Assuming the 3000 calls/year is per station, and not per dwpartment, that means a station responds to a call, on average, once every three hours.

Also factor in most of those calls during the morning and evening, follow-up paperwork time, daily equipment checks, and station maintenance. If you cut the timeframe down to 12 hours busy window, that's 90 minutes per call. Throw a good call in there and they stack up. In my experience, a 24 hour shift with 8-10 calls is just about the max to handle before burnout.

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