Busy Vs Quiet

[Madhatter]

I think I know what the answer may be to this question. But currently I’m on a maybe slightly below average station in terms of turnout numbers. 
I’m  tempted to transfer to city centre as I think this will give me much for opportunities to gain experience. But on the other hand, I’m currently living 5 minutes away from station which benefits family life. 
so does anyone have any answers as to benefits to staying or going? 

[Dyson]

It depends how you’re wired, as a character. For me I have always sought out the busiest trucks, that work the busiest grounds. I’m not content to sit at quiet stations. Even if what PB86 says above were true, which isn’t my lived experience, I would still rather be turning out and getting on with the job. 

That said there are thousands of fantastic firefighters up and down the country who are happy at quieter stations, and I respect that. Just depends on what you need from the job as an individual. 

Good luck whichever you choose 😊

[Rory-495]

I'd pick busy every day if the week. I was trapped on a quiet 1 appliance,  missed every job (there was 1 for my watch in 15 months) so would leap at a standby to a busier station. As they say its what you want based on your situation. I'd happily be up 10 times a night at the age of 24 with no kids. When I have them I'm sure I may change my tune

[Dangly1]

This is a very individual thing as what you want out of the job and balancing it with home life is different to the next person. 

Some people I know have a full on family life and busy second job so are at quieter stations as that suits them. Others fly in from other countries and spend five nights out of eight away from home, so try and put yourself on that scale somewhere!

I spent years at a 'quieter' station because the watch was so good and I never enjoyed going to work so much. We picked up some good jobs but we didn't have the constant in and out for alarms and special service calls that the city centre ones pick up. And when it was quiet... It was quiet! I had transfers in for central stations but two things made my mind up to move - seeing two fellas retire on one of the other watches after spending their whole careers at one station made me think there's more to the job than that, and secondly seeing other watches turn from good ones to bad where people didn't enjoy being there and I didnt want to be in that position so chose to leave whilst I was still enjoying it.

Being at a central station is great, it's much more social and jobs are naturally bigger because of the bigger PDAs that the property types demand. And you actually feel like you're working for the brigade that you joined being central rather than being on the outskirts I could have been at any brigade across the country. 

If you have the support of your family and it doesn't affect work life balance I'd say go for it, but don't underestimate the importance of a good watch- even at a central station depending on what shift system your brigade works you could have up to four different watches who may all work differently and you'll naturally fit in better with some than others. 

[Yoffey]

So having spent 99% of my 40 year career at some of the busiest stations in a large Met brigade I will go for busy all the way. Personally I never understand people who want a career in the Fire Service but then spend it at quite stations. Sometimes people fall into their comfort zones and get used to an easy life. Also have found some of the most motivated crews are found at the busy stations. Just my personal thoughts !

[Becile]

Sorry @Yoffeyafter a fair few years in, I'd say it's more or less impossible to link "motivation" to busy or quiet, sometimes quite the opposite  ! My question- motivation for what ? Everyone wants to do a good job dont they ? to be the best (at what ),  to continually learn? To push yourself? or just  to be busy? Are they motivated or are they just busy?

There's plenty of fire service activities that don't neccesarily need you to be on a shout all the time. (No comment on prevention, protection and response deliberately)

Just a thought from a now recently retired old fart !!

But I respect your opinion.

[Yoffey]

@Becile,  When I mentioned motivation I look at areas like competition training and promotion, as in my experience these predominantly come from the busier stations.  I do agree entirely about everyone wanting and doing a good job particularly when we go out the doors. What I have found interesting over the years is the inter station transfer list, it used to be full of people wanting to go from quite to busy, and people could wait years to get that move. Have a look now and nobody wants to transfer to busy !!

Anyway Im like you and out of it now, enjoy your retirement and remember, the Fire Service is a fantastic career and its even better when retired.😃

PS. Im most defiantly not having a go at anyone in this thread, its just my own thoughts.

[Luminoki]

For me its about having a decent work life balance, so im at a station in sleepy surburbia which is not far from my house. But i get to eat dinner with my kids before a night shift and am always home in time for bathtime and a story before bed on days. Which i beleive is important considering the shift cycle we work. It suits me right now but down the line i would like to move to one of the inner city stations ( i did start making enquiries last year at the busiest but the childcare plan fell through ) Instead ive made myself busy on station taking on more prevention and partnership work and going for my CC which will see me move anyway

Also in regards to types of jobs it depends what youre tipping out to. Yes the inner city stations get the afas but they also get the factory fires and highrises. Ironically it seems our quiet outer stations get the messy rtcs and bad house fires

[Noddy]

It’s swings and roundabouts.  When I joined I was 20, no family of my own and wanted to be at jobs all the time day and night.  So when my first posting was to a quiet station, I couldn’t wait to move.  After 4 years I got my move and spent the next 9 years at a busy station.  It was great and I loved it although it was further from home.  I learned my trade and gained a heck of a lot of experience.

However, I became too comfortable and despite two promotions I needed a new challenge so went into the FI team which is where I’ve now been for 11 years.  

If I were now faced with being back on a station, and because I have a young family, my priority would be somewhere that’s fit around my family and not being at a busy station.  I’m grateful for the experience I gained in the late 90’s and early 00’s which to be honest, won’t be matched these days as we don’t have any busy stations left in West Mids. 

My advice is to get as much experience as you can while your able to. 

[Messyshaw]

In the LFB, the published figures were often misleading as 'total calls' means very little to me, as the really important statistic is the numbers of fire calls (esp primary fires)

Then London only recorded figures for shouts on the station's home ground. I was WM at a one pump station for many years which was surrounded by other one pump stations. We would pick up perhaps 25% of calls to all 4 neighbouring stations areas (as their 2nd pump), so that extended my station's figures significantly, but they were not recorded anywhere

Its true, it is an individual thing for each person which is best demonstrated by the answers  you get when asking members of the off going watch how their shift has been.  Some would say "Shit, we have been in and out all day" where others would reply "Shit - we haven't turned a wheel"

I was firmly in the latter group and loved being busy. My last station was very odd. Moderately quiet in the day but hellish at night with lots of small primary fires that were dealt with by the PDA without any senior officers getting in the way. It was a good way to learn and maintain your skills.

[Vema11]

If you can access your services incident recording system compare stations, on actual working jobs ratio not running to AFAs or lift rescues. Cause there are stations which still fairly regularly get decent jobs, all be it nothing compared to what it was like in the 90s. But you can still build your experience level there. no matter what people say about training, for me going to incidents is the best way to learn the job. 

[Becile]

I think that there's also a difference between Met and rural brigades, agree re the numbers and types of jobs .For example in the whole of my career  I can count on one hand the number of lift rescues I went to, but would need to be mlipede to count the fatal RTCs.

Horses for courses.

[Healdav]

A few years ago I was talking to one ex-LFB senior officer, and he told me that he had spent a lot of his time working for a rural brigade in Sussex. He moved to London because he became utterly fed up with turning out to heave animals - mostly cows - out of slurry pits. It seemed to be a daily occurrence.

Much bigger variety of incidents in London, and strangely, no slurry pits!

[Noddy]

4 hours ago, Becile said:

I think that there's also a difference between Met and rural brigades, agree re the numbers and types of jobs .For example in the whole of my career  I can count on one hand the number of lift rescues I went to, but would need to be mlipede to count the fatal RTCs.

Horses for courses.

This is also very true.  I’ve been to countless house fires, high rise fires etc… but far less extrication RTC’s, chimney and big grass/gorse/hill fires. 

I personally go to more fatal fires in a year than most BRIGADES will see, but would be scratching my head a bit trying to rescue a large animal from a pit. 

[Dyson]

2 hours ago, Becile said:

I think that there's also a difference between Met and rural brigades, agree re the numbers and types of jobs .For example in the whole of my career  I can count on one hand the number of lift rescues I went to, but would need to be mlipede to count the fatal RTCs.

Horses for courses.

I can’t count the number of lift jobs I go to on one hand, on any given night shift 😂

[TrainHardFightEasy]

Biggin Hill must have an excellent canteen based on the number of shouts they have. 

[Steve]

There is (or was before call challenge and AFA reduction policies), a lot of what might be deemed nuisance calls attended in inner city areas and I'm beginning to get a bit of an 'us and them' feel to this thread. I served my time on a fire engine before any type of call reduction came in (with the exception of persons's locked out which had reached ridiculous numbers in the mid-90's so they started to put some conditions around those in 1995/6 as I recall).

Nonetheless AFA's, Shut in lift's, bin fires, car fires, derelicts, lock outs etc made up a lot of each shift, I knew no different, I loved it and I couldn't stand it any other way. Because of the areas I served the proper jobs came as well (again this was before mass fitting of smoke detectors and education through CFS).  Just by number of households & people, their demographic, more frequency of human error or malicious acts than outer or suburban areas... It seems as if you had to take the low level calls to be in the right area for the proper work.

I had a couple of short spells of T/promotion as Sub Officer to Hornchurch, close to where I live and also at Millwall an unusually quiet station in the East End. In both cases I gave up after a couple of weeks because I was literally bored stupid with not going out regularly, some shifts with one or two calls others with none. In both cases I busted back to Lff just to get back to having some operational activity, even if it was a couple of shut in lifts a bin fire and three AFA's... because I knew the next proper job was only ever a couple of shifts away. 

Yes, I'd need a millipede to count all of the shut in lift's, AFA's, bin fires and the like I've ever attended. But alongside that I'd also need a millipede to count the working jobs of all types my posting's afforded me. I genuinely and tragically can't remember all of the fatal incidents I have attended. it's not a badge of honour and although I concede I saw most of my special service deaths in suburban areas as an ADO, I still saw an equal number of tragedies on those busy inner city streets. 

With my corner now well defended, I'll go back to the OP's post. Serious incidents happen every where eventually, and I know from covering much larger areas as a senior officer you can't chase them as the real surprises often appear in the most unlikely of places. But this is a number game. If you want to collect car registration numbers, stand on a motorway bridge and not a rural side street... if you want to spot trains, go to Clapham Junction and not Three Oaks station in Sussex. Therefore, if you have the opportunity and your life outside allows it, spend a few years at a busy City Centre station. You will see all of life, you will feel you are serving a purpose more often than not and you will gain valuable experience.

Best of luck. 

[Jono]

I enjoy being currently at a city station, we have a large area to cover and some decent roads cutting through our patch so lucky to get a vast array of jobs of both RTCs, fires etc, one thing we don’t have is many high rises so that side we don’t really see, we have a few but jobs are few and far between in them, also we are a water rescue station and enjoy that side of the job, I have however see people leave because they hate nights, and go to day crewed or a lot quieter station for their benefit and if I’m honest I completely understand, if went home a few times with a face like a melted welly after a long night and children have no sympathy 😂,  I suppose again like anything it depends what you want to do as an individual, maybe dip toes in and find out and take it from there

[HB2016]

Everyone is always going to have a different opinion. Some love a quiet self rostered station doing 800 calls a year because it suits their outside work, life etc. Others thrive on their fire service life and love a busy station in the city being up all night. Some have been in 20+ years and are winding down, others have done a few years and are keen as mustard.

Ultimately, it depends what you want. I love the city, the hustle and bustle at a weekend, everything going on at night. It might be 8 AFA's, a lift rescue and a bin fire but it's just great to get out the doors and ride the pump. The adrenaline of the bells going down etc...

With that said, getting detached to a quiet station and sleeping all night once in a while can be a welcome change 😂.

I'm currently at a station somewhere in the middle that is just outside the town centre and we go through fits and spurts of everything or nothing. But we get a good variation of jobs alongside a great watch and three other good watches which is really important to me.

[BurtMacklin]

busy without question though as I progress in age I do find the nights harder to bounce back from. 

[Rory-495]

Busy! Was on a quiet station initially and couldn't wait to get out - every standby to a busy stayion id beg to be allocated to.

Wasn't allowed to leave so I ended up moving into training to keep me busy. Now, I do miss being on my old station, but being busy training wise is keeping me entertained and happy until I ensure I get back onto a busy station 

[Madhatter]

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this. 
similar to Dangly I’ve landed lucky with a great shift and I also happen to love 5 minutes up the road from station so getting precious time with my kids has been great. But I still think I would rather be busier for turnouts. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a few decent jobs in my short time in the job so far, but there’s other probies on station that have went 2 years without anything significant. I know that’s not what it’s all about but real experience is what we crave.  

[Dyson]

To some of us, that is what it’s all about, my friend 😊

[Rich]

I went from training to quiet station with a great crew and enjoyed it a lot there however after some time I just didn’t feel like a firefighter, like I wasn’t even doing the job. 

Moved to city centre and it’s like a completely different job. Don’t get me wrong lots of the shouts are AFAs and lifts etc but a LOT more working fires along with that. In context, our new apprentice has had 10+ BA jobs in six months, some of his mates have had one or none. 

The nights can be hard, and sometimes look at quiet stations and think are we stupid, we are paid the same to be out 5-6 times a night on average and they aren’t. But know I’d be bored going back. Got no kids myself but plenty of the others on station do and get on with it fine. 

Love the atmosphere of working a busy station and in the city centre