Eau Claire Fire Rescue hiring firefighters

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) - Last November, voters in the city of Eau Claire approved a referendum to raise additional funds for more positions within Eau Claire Fire Rescue. Those funds approved the hiring of six additional positions within the department.

“We’re in the process of that right now with the anticipation of implementing that quite soon,” Allyn Bertrang, a deputy chief with Eau Claire Fire Rescue said.

Bertrang said some of those firefighters have already been hired and will begin training soon. He said the department has other positions they are looking to fill as well.

“Throughout the year, we have periodic times where we bring candidates in to go through our hiring process, which includes an application process, interviews with police and fire commission and reviews with staff from the Eau Claire Fire Department,” Bertrang said. “It might be firefighting, it might be emergency medical or special rescue, along with non-emergency job requirements. So, we always want to hire the very best trained and the very best people we can.”

Last year, Eau Claire Fire Rescue responded to more than 10,000 incidents.

“In 2022, we had more than 10,600 incidents that we were responding to with the Eau Claire Fire Department and that’s been the trajectory, that increasing calls has created a need for additional staffing,” Bertrang said. “The trend is that the incident numbers continue to grow each year. So, exactly what we’ll see from 2023, we don’t know, but we would expect that it would be higher than we had even in 2022.”

Bertrang said Eau Claire Fire Rescue is looking for employees in various positions and encourages anyone interested to apply. The application process to join Eau Claire Fire Rescue is completed through Chippewa Valley Technical College.

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