Fire departments across Oregon are facing staffing shortages as veteran firefighters retire and volunteer numbers drop. But the Oregon Fire Apprenticeship program has been helping departments bring in more candidates with more diverse backgrounds. The apprenticeship pays a minimum salary of $3,800 per month and covers the cost of the five community college classes required for training. The program has been running in Clackamas, Jackson, Klamath and Wasco counties. With a new round of state funding, it recently expanded to Corvallis, Coos Bay and Umatilla County.
Karl Koenig is president of the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council. Ari Bakoss is a former apprentice and current firefighter and EMT at Clackamas Fire. They both join us to talk about the program and the difference it’s making for aspiring firefighters.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Fire departments across Oregon are facing staffing shortages as veteran firefighters retire and volunteer numbers drop. The Oregon Fire Apprenticeship Program was created in response. For the last two years, it’s been helping departments bring in more candidates from more diverse backgrounds. The program has been running in Clackamas, Jackson, Klamath and Wasco Counties. A new round of state funding will expand the program to Corvallis, Coos Bay and Umatilla Counties. Karl Koenig is the president of the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council. Ari Bakoss was recently hired as a firefighter and EMT at Clackamas Fire after her apprenticeship. They both join us now. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.
Ari Bakoss: Good morning.
Karl Koenig: Good morning.
Miller: So Karl first, what is the staffing situation like when you look at Oregon’s fire departments and districts statewide?
Koenig: To put it in very practical terms, we’re about 3,800 members across the entire state. We have 98,000 square miles in Oregon, and we have about 900 firefighters a day on duty. And we’re about 400 firefighters a day short to meet national standards and serve the public adequately between fire and EMS calls.
Miller: Wow! I mean, that’s an enormous gap. When you say that we’re 400 short ‒ with 900 a day working and 400 short ‒ what does that mean in practice? I mean, people are still going out on calls. So, I guess maybe the… what I’m wondering is what is not happening?
Koenig: The fire service in general is not a ‘no’ career. So, Ari can tell you we will do whatever it takes to get whatever done with whatever people we have. And that is our Achilles. So in some places there will be two firefighters, even one firefighter, a day and then rely on volunteers or student firefighters to make the balance of the crew. And when you are relying on people who come just to serve their community, they have other things in the way. And really, that makes for an unreliable response.
So when I say we’re 400 short, the national standard from the National Fire Protection Association is four on a piece of apparatus. And when you’re short of that, interestingly enough, that fourth person makes your crew 70% more effective in the jobs that we’re required to do on an emergency scene, whether that’s a car wreck, an EMS call, or a fire.
So for 25% more money, you get 70% more efficiency. From a business standpoint, it’s certainly good. But we struggle in communities with property tax compression and, really, the desire to fund fire correctly, if you will.
Miller: I want to hear a lot more about that. But Ari Bakoss, I’m curious, what was your career like, what was your life like, before you made the switch a couple years ago to a firefighting apprenticeship?
Bakoss: Oh, of course. Before fire, I was working as a product designer in tech. I had gotten my master’s in information science and prior to that worked primarily desk jobs. You know, your classic 9 to 6. And after COVID, the landscape changed entirely. So my time was spent primarily working from home behind a computer screen for a lot of it.
Miller: What went through your mind when you imagined just continuing that career for the rest of your working life?
Bakoss: “Please, God. No.” I did not envision this for the next 30 years of my working life. It did not seem sustainable from a mental health perspective. Just from a physical perspective, I don’t feel comfortable sitting down for long stretches a day. And it definitely did not feel like a good fit, long term.
Miller: So you were looking for a change. But what drew you to firefighting in particular?
Bakoss: It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I did not grow up, though, with family or friends in the fire service. So it did seem like a very foreign application process. I didn’t really understand the different steps, the different tests, the different physicals, depending on what state you’d be applying to. And it was kind of difficult to wrap my head around.
So I moved around a bit in my earlier life and each state I ended up residing in, I’d pull up the fire site and see what the requirements are for this state? I guess I’d say COVID was really a trigger point for me. Trying to see what getting into fire would really look like, and the apprenticeship just made getting that foot in the door that much more possible honestly.
Miller: A career shift is a huge decision. I mean, what were the financial considerations?
Bakoss: A mortgage, student loans.
Miller: Huge obligations.
Bakoss: Absolutely. Absolutely. I was saying earlier, it was a foreign concept understanding what the different processes are. When I sat down with my partner to really figure out how I could achieve this goal, there was a kind of strategizing on our end of how long would I have to work full-time to then be able to switch to something part-time or contract in order to be able to make the time commitment of volunteering or interning at a firehouse, potentially an hour or two out of where I live.
So it definitely did not seem like something that was gonna happen in six months or a year even. It definitely felt like, ok, this is something I’m going to decide to do. Be prepared to set aside four to five years of volunteering and getting to know folks in that industry to really feel like there’s a potential shot at the next hiring circuit.
Miller: And in that scenario, you’d be working a full-time tech job and then squeezing in on nights or weekends some volunteer time to get those hours in?
Bakoss: Potentially, yeah. That was the thought. And then the thought was how long I would have to work full-time to save, to then be able to just maybe work part-time or contract projects, so I could then dedicate more time volunteering? It was definitely a sacrifice and time commitment that we were trying to figure out how to make possible.
Miller: Karl in the past, how would people with no experience in the fire service typically work their way up to becoming firefighters?
Koenig: I will tell you, I’m actually a retired Clackamas captain paramedic. So, I will tell you my story which is very typical of a fire service professional. You become a student firefighter or volunteer, as Ari said. You start to get your name out there. You understand the process. And that whole time for me, [having grown] up here in Portland and gone to Benson High School, I knew then I was gonna be a firefighter. I grew up across the street from a fire station. I just knew. And then I knew I had to volunteer to get that experience. So I could go into the interview process and tell them I was ready to make a difference in other people’s lives and help the public.
Miller: Can I ask you, did you have a mortgage or student loans at that point?
Koenig: No. All I had to do was really make sure I didn’t make my parents upset because I was gone all the time volunteering and working shifts as a student firefighter in East Multnomah County. So I didn’t have that earnings pressure. And one of the keys about the Apprentice Program is we want people like Ari, a new batch of folks who didn’t realize that they didn’t have to go into a time commitment of being a volunteer, which is free, be able to have earning power as an apprentice and then work into a full-time career job, as opposed to a full-time apprentice.
Miller: How much can apprentices earn while they’re doing their training?
Koenig: This is a BOLI Bureau of Labor and industries Teammate Apprenticeship. So much like pipefitters or plumbers or electricians, Ari started at 73% of Clackamas starting wage with all the benefits. So health insurance, PERS, sick leave, all the things, vacation, paid vacation. But it was 73% of the beginning wage.
And then once through their first year, it goes up to 80%. And then at the end of two years or when, like in Ari’s case, she would go to 100% once she became a full-time firefighter as opposed to a full-time apprentice.
Miller: Ari, what was it like on your very first day of this apprenticeship? Do you remember that first day?
Bakoss: Absolutely. It was definitely intimidating, a little daunting, and incredibly, incredibly exciting. It definitely felt like a new chapter in my life and just an amazing opportunity. Um You will hear a lot, you know, the apprenticeship as that golden ticket and it, yeah, I don’t know what my life would look like right now. If this hadn’t happened, probably a lot of what I just described earlier, where I’m juggling maybe a job or two and volunteering somewhere for an unforeseen amount of time, which, I think Karl said, is the more traditional route.
Miller: How welcomed did you feel by the firefighters that you were working under and training under?
Bakoss: Incredibly. I think everyone recognized where we were coming from, which is also the beauty of the apprenticeship. You’re not coming and pretending like you have five or six years of experience. You’re there because they know you don’t have that experience. And so they’re really helping you build those bread and butter skills foundationally, from square one. And you have such a good base formed when you’re getting going in that sense. There’s no putting on airs, there’s no pretending, like you know more than you do. You’re accepted for where you are in the process. And I think that was key, honestly.
Miller: Was there a moment in your training when you thought yes, I made the right decision. I upended my life and I’m glad I did?
Bakoss: Every shift.
Miller: Every shift, what do you mean?
Bakoss: Every single shift. The day is just full of variety. You have no idea what kind of call you’re going to get. There’s amazing camaraderie and you learn so much from the different people that you work with. You never know who you’re going to work with. Some shifts, people call out sick, you have trades, and it’s just an exposure to people from different places, life experience. And then the community that you’re responding to and the people you’re in service to.
So maybe there’s a motor vehicle accident. Maybe it’s a series of medical calls. Maybe it is a fire. You don’t know. And so every time you get a call [you are] figuring out how you want to approach it and just what the different interactions are going to be. It’s incredibly satisfying. And I never got that level of excitement or just purposefulness in my previous job.
Miller: If you’re just tuning in, we’re talking right now about the Oregon Fire Apprenticeship Program which aims to increase both the diversity and the sheer number of firefighters in the state. Karl Koenig is one of the point people for the Program. He is the President of the Oregon State Firefighters Council. Ari Bacchus is a former apprentice and now a firefighter and EMT at Clackamas Fire. The first apprentice programs were in Klamath, Jackson, Clackamas Counties and Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue near the Dalles. How were these four agencies chosen?
Koenig: We, meaning the JATC or Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee, which was really our admin at the Oregon State Firefighters Council. We picked, actually the very first one, was Jackson County Fire District Five because of the Talent fire. If you remember in 2020, to put things into perspective, Jackson County Fire District Five had six people on duty that day. That urban conflagration happened and basically burned down the town of Talent and then half of Phoenix. We knew that they needed staffing immediately.
And because of the diverse nature of that community, we knew that they would meet those goals of bringing folks in who had not considered fire service as a career. And it became very apparent, when they got a federal SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) Grant and the nine apprentices, that we added 20 people, not a day but 20 people, overall. And they ended up being able to put fires out, come to find out, when you have people there. They had, what would have been catastrophic, fires put out by the crews that were on duty after the apprentices got through with their 16-week academy.
So the strength of attack, what we call the weight of attack, changed so much in Jackson County Five, we knew we were on the right path serving the communities all across Oregon. And really that story repeats itself whether you’re in Klamath Fire District One, down in Klamath Falls, mid-Columbia, or certainly Clackamas Fire, because we had a greater pool to draw from.
For example, there were 435 people that went and interviewed for those, what ended up being, 14 apprentice opportunities in Clackamas. So for their firefighter paramedic job that they just got through closing, they had less than 150 applicants. So we know that if we’re looking for a particular group of people who may not have thought fire service was a career opportunity, they get pretty excited with the opportunity.
Those application numbers were just incredible, and we had similar, not numbers-wise but, percentage-wise in Klamath and in mid-Columbia to join their teams. And we’re very excited to bring a different look. So our pool of people that we draw from, if there’s fewer volunteers, that means there’s fewer people to bring into the career fire service. So we knew, as one of our initial goals, we had to find a new group of people and we’ve done that with our body.
Miller: How? I’m curious, it seems like there’s an art to recruiting in general, but especially if you’re trying to bring in people who have long been underrepresented in whatever field you’re trying to hire for? How have you expanded the diversity among your ranks?
Koenig: First and foremost, a general interest. Hey, do you like helping people? Ari could tell you. Yes, of course, I do. And have you ever thought about the fire service? No, because as she said, she didn’t have a practical time frame to go ahead. So, what the apprenticeship does is provide you that security of a paycheck while you’re learning the trade. This is on the job training, 4,000 hours of training over two years.
Some set stuff like emergency medical technician, about halfway through your associate degree program by the time you finish your apprenticeship and then go to journey level, over the two years and go from there. So what we do is we rely on that newness and that idea that you’re here to do something better and believe it or not. Folks respond very well to that. Those interviews that I talk about are amazing. ‘Of course, I wanna help somebody. I know serving my community is important.’ And we talk about generational differences.
When we’re interviewing a veteran who’s just come home from Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan has got service on their mind. They do great, they do great. They come and go, of course, I know what a paramilitary organization is. But then we have folks like Ari who come in and [say], ‘I just have a desire.’ And then we get to show them the ropes, if you will. And then the bonus is they get to add to the weight of attack that I talked about earlier to make service better.
And so all these things come together and we get a new community that’s now interested in the fire service. We take probably five or six phone calls a day about when we’re gonna start our next program at our office. So it’s been immensely popular and it’s certainly fun, as one of the team leaders in this program, to find out that Clackamas has just hired 13 people full time right out of the apprentice program. That’s super exciting. That’s that end point we’re looking for.
Miller: Ari, you mentioned earlier that both your old jobs, at a desk, 9 to 6, working in tech, wasn’t sustainable for you mentally or physically, just sitting there. It seems like you have the opposite kind of job now in so many ways. What has the pure physicality of your new job, what has that been like?
Bakoss: It’s definitely been something that is more satisfying than what I was doing before, in the sense that I’ve always considered myself an athlete growing up, three-season sports. [I’ve] always been going to the gym four to five days a week and it just fits more into what my lifestyle naturally is. Whereas I think we try to be who we are outside of work and then you go to work. And that’s just kind of that dichotomy.
Miller: You can be more yourself in your day job or 24-hour job, right? You have a long shift.
Bakoss: You’re getting the benefits that you would seek out in your time off. But you’re also getting that while you’re on the clock.
Miller: Being a first responder also means that sometimes you’re gonna be there for tragic calls, at people’s worst moments of their lives. Maybe sometimes their last moments, massive heart attacks and fatal overdoses, and car crashes, and deadly fires. How do you think about the mental toll that this job can take?
Bakoss: I think it’s important, in general or in life, to have a sense of self awareness and know what your limits are with certain things. I also think it’s important to have outlets when you do experience tragedies, whether it’s personal or professional. And so when you’re in a field of work where the moments and instances that you’re experiencing are significantly greater than the average population, it’s mandatory that you know what those outlets are.
So for me, I know what brings me joy off the clock and I know what gives me a chance to recharge my batteries off the clock. If I’ve been on a call that maybe lingers longer than I’d like it to, after it’s been completed, like if you’re thinking about it, I think that’s just the nature of the beast. And I think those practices are important regardless of the work. So, for me, it didn’t feel shocking, in that sense, because I think I had made a point of doing a lot of research before entering the fire service in this capacity.
And my own life experiences have fed into how I handle things like that. So I felt as prepared as I could. I don’t think anyone’s ever 100%. Every call is different, but I think there’s definitely resources and tools out there. Especially with Clackamas Fire, they do provide you support resources for all of the potential call types you can get and the kinds of conversations you might need to have or the outlets you might need to just feel better, if that’s the case. So it’s been 100% supportive all around.
Miller: Ari and Karl. Thanks very much.
Bakoss: Of course. Thank you.
Koenig: Thank you.
Miller: Ari Bakoss is a firefighter and EMT with Clackamas Fire District One. That’s after she did a fire apprenticeship program. Karl Koenig is one of the point people for this statewide program. He is the President of the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council.
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