Fort Worth Fire Department trains its largest-ever recruit class

The City of Fort Worth's fire department is training its largest-ever recruiting class, in an effort to keep up with the city's population growth.

Chief James Davis said he'd been trying to boost staffing for a couple of years, and the city council granted the budget after recent studies highlighted the need.

“They reflected that we weren’t making good use of our people and that we were becoming dependent upon overtime in order to keep up with the growth," Davis said.

He said Fort Worth is growing at about 20,000 new residents per year.

The budget increase allows for 70 new firefighters.

"This increase in our authorized strength will help us to maintain-- to keep up with that growth and provide that level of service," Davis said.

The current recruitment class, 60 people, is twice the size of the usual academy class.

Trent Schuett is one of those new recruits. He's on the fast track, since he has experience in a different city, but has always wanted to land in Fort Worth.

“Every single time I saw a Fort Worth fireman and heard about the respect they have in this city, I’ve always wanted to be one," said Schuett, who grew up near Fort Worth.

His passion for firefighting goes back farther than that-- a few generations further, to his grandpa, who was a volunteer firefighter in Nebraska.

“I still have his badge, it hangs in my truck and I touch it every day before I go to work," Schuett said.

If all goes well at the academy, Schuett will graduate in November. His non-fast-tracked cohorts will graduate in March.

Chief Davis said they expanded their marketing techniques to draw in more recruits, saying recruiters reached out to people who showed interest and followed up with them individually.

He also said they've had to figure out how to expand their training to account for large class sizes.

“[We] reached out to local partners like TCU, like UNT Health Science Center, locally," Davis said. "They’ve opened up their facilities for us to use, some of their instructors.”

“We’re going to make sure they have as good of an experience and they are as prepared as a smaller class normally would be," Davis added.

Davis said the next class might be just as large.

Since not all recruits make it out of the academy, he said the large class sizes put them on track for their goal: to fill all 70 positions by the end of the fiscal year.

Schuett hopes to be one of those chosen.

“I hope this is my city one day, protect it. That’s why I started being a fireman, I want to get out there and serve and care for people. I want to be there for them on their worst days just to make it a little better if I can," he said.

The Fort Worth Fire Department also just added a fire station in north Fort Worth, and is in the process of building a new station on the west side, to facilitate population growth.