Excerpts from foxillinois.com:
After months of back and forth, the Springfield Fire Department will be hiring 18 firefighters this year and could hire another 18 shortly after.
The department is already dealing with low staffing, down enough firefighters to fill two houses. Several large classes of firefighters hired in the late 90s and early 2000s are becoming eligible to retire, and that means now is the time to get ahead of it, hiring another class of firefighters soon after this one.
The department says hiring shouldn’t be difficult because they already have a list of recruits, several of which have backgrounds in EMS. These hires are expected to eventually help bring down the overtime hours. It can take ten months to train firefighters before they can help offset those numbers.
The department typically sees between 10 and 12 retirements each year.
