There's usually some rule about overtime starting when too many hours are worked in a given period (e.g. after 40 hours in 7 days) or too many continuous hours are worked in a single shift.
It looks like one major reason they do shifts that way is because federal law allows up to 53 hours without overtime per week, specific to firefighters and possibly other government staff. The 24 hour schedule apparently gets station managers the most out of this arrangement.
Outside of that.. there really doesn't seem to be any sense in it at all. Kelly days. Rotations. No ability to scale to peak and off peak times. Allowing sleeping on shift. It just looks antiquated for no good reason.
There are only 2080 regular fulltime hours in a year. 52 * 40.
Firefighters in CA work 24 or 48 hour shifts. 56 hour work week. Most FDs have 3 shifts. They work 4 solid months at a station per year.
There's usually some rule about overtime starting when too many hours are worked in a given period (e.g. after 40 hours in 7 days) or too many continuous hours are worked in a single shift.
Firefighters don't generally work 9-5...
It looks like one major reason they do shifts that way is because federal law allows up to 53 hours without overtime per week, specific to firefighters and possibly other government staff. The 24 hour schedule apparently gets station managers the most out of this arrangement.
Outside of that.. there really doesn't seem to be any sense in it at all. Kelly days. Rotations. No ability to scale to peak and off peak times. Allowing sleeping on shift. It just looks antiquated for no good reason.