Rochester’s Firefighter Recruitment Initiatives

Rochester Assistant Fire Chief Caleb Feine recalls a time around Sept. 11, 2001, when there was a spike in the amount of people who wanted to serve as firefighters. Since then, there has been a gradual decline in those interested in the profession.

“Nationwide, they’re really struggling to fill seats in the fire trucks,” Feine said.

Feine believes his department has not struggled with recruitment to the same degree as others around the country, yet the Rochester Fire Department (RFD) has still found room for growth.

RFD has “walked the talk” in recruitment by taking a multifaceted approach to community interaction, intentional diversity recruitment, and youth engagement.

Engaging Rochester Youth

RFD celebrates Fire Prevention Week every fall by visiting every second-grade classroom in Rochester. Students undergo fire safety lessons, fill out coloring books, and get to see fire trucks up close.

“We keep it really lighthearted,” Feine said. “We let these kids know that we’re human—that’s the biggest thing.”

Feine’s department engages with older Rochester students by teaching Firefighter I and II—the basic classes all firefighters must take. RFD partners with Rochester Public Schools and neighboring communities to offer the program. The department pays for its instructors’ overtime, while the school district buys the course books and covers students’ liability.

“It’s built so many awesome relationships with the students,” Feine said. “They love it.”

RFD is going into its sixth year of offering the course and will have to turn some students away due to high enrollment numbers, which Feine said is “a good problem to have.”

“Our motto is ‘Grow Your Own’ within the City of Rochester,” Feine said. “We are certainly doing that.”

Listening to the Community

In 2021, RFD hosted a community roundtable and invited leaders from over 10 of the city’s diverse communities to share why members of their communities lacked interest in becoming firefighters.

“We created a safe space and went with the premise that we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Feine said. “It was really powerful because people said, ‘My son doesn’t see anyone like him riding on a firetruck,’ or ‘My daughter doesn’t see anyone like her.’ So how do we do that? Well, it’s going to take time.”

Being Intentional About Diversity

RFD recognized attracting more women and people of color to its department would not happen overnight, but the weight of its long-term goal did not keep the department from acting.

The department began hosting a Women’s Fire Expo in 2021.

“It’s just a good way to show them that they can absolutely do this,” Feine said.

It didn’t take long before RFD decided to expand its expo.

“We took our women’s expo and thought, ‘How do we get to male and female members our Somali population? How do we get to our Latinx community?’” Feine said. “So we thought, ‘Let’s make a traveling expo. Let’s go to them.’”

Feine’s team brought its traveling expo to Rochester’s Latinx community and welcomed potential recruits with music, free food, and “all the fun stuff,” according to Feine. Unfortunately, only two people showed up.

“It was a swing and a miss,” Feine said, “but we are going to continue to do it. We want to get people more excited right in their backyard instead of making them travel to come see us.”

Since these efforts, Feine approximates the number of recruits who identify as women or people of color has at least doubled, if not tripled. However, Feine and his team realize it’s not enough to hire non-white-male recruits—they also must feel as though they belong at RFD.

“Just because they work here doesn’t mean they have to follow the historic traditions of the fire service,” Feine said. “We have to make conscious efforts to make sure this is a good fit for everyone.”

RFD has taken on other recruitment efforts, such as:

• A ride-along program (“My biggest disclaimer with that is if I can get your butt in the seat of a firetruck, you’re going to be hooked,” Feine said.”).
• Updating the department’s hiring process. Recruits are no longer required to complete a written test. Interviews are value-based, and there are no minimum requirements for anyone to apply.

Feine recognizes that not all fire departments have the staff or resources to take on as many recruitment efforts as RFD. But he encourages other departments to get out in their communities.

“There are already a ton of community events that are already scheduled, and that other people are already paying for,” Feine said. “Just join them. Get out there and be a part of it.”

Feine advises departments to start small and stresses the importance of leading with authenticity.

“The days of, ‘Hey, we’re Supermen or Superwomen,’ are gone,” Feine said. “We are 100% humans. We have feelings. We hurt. We are happy just like everyone else. It’s OK to let the public see us in all those different forms because we aren’t different.”