Firemen with Sidearms

[Flux Capacitor]

I am not trying to knock uniformed firemen with sidearms, but it has perked my curiosity. I see a fireman (could be a chief etc) regularly during my lunches at a local diner. He carries a sidearms much like a police officer. His other fireman lunch buddies do not have any.

Do they carry because of armed arsonists? Are they law enforcement?

[CaptMike]

Arson Investgators track down arsonsts, so they carry

[Ron-Solo]

Arson Investigators have limited peace officer authority and have powers of arrest.

[Jonathan Doe]

I trained LA County Fire arson investigators when I was an instructor at the range in 90's.

[Jack L]

Cal Fire has fire cops. My wife is the Cal Fire administrative Captain at the Command Center for central CA so I meet some of the fire LE people. Some of the fire cops in the past wore their handguns around even when not on a call dealing with a specific incident. Most are not into wearing them but have them in their vehicles. They are POST trained.

[erik_26]

Cal Fire has fire cops. My wife is the Cal Fire administrative Captain at the Command Center for central CA so I meet some of the fire LE people. Some of the fire cops in the past wore their handguns around even when not on a call dealing with a specific incident. Most are not into wearing them but have them in their vehicles. They are POST trained.

^this^

[J_B]

What City do you live in?

My little bro works for Rohnert Park and they're "Public Safety" so he is trained in fire as well as LEO. He chose to work the LEO side but told me he carried his handgun all the time when he did a short tour on the fire side of the house.

[IrishPirate]

All CAL FIRE Battalion Chiefs were supposed to go through POST.....i think funding ran out not too long after they started that. Some BC's are peace officers, some aren't. Most Prevention BC's and Captains are peace officers, but not all. Most other departements are exactly the same way. It's not a "firefighter" thing, it's a "prevention" and "peace officer" thing. If i took a gun to my station, i'd be fired on the spot. we're actually expressly prohibited from having guns on CAL FIRE property as employees.


PS. thanks for saying Firemen.....i appreciate it!!!!

[cacop]

What City do you live in?

My little bro works for Rohnert Park and they're "Public Safety" so he is trained in fire as well as LEO. He chose to work the LEO side but told me he carried his handgun all the time when he did a short tour on the fire side of the house.

Sunnyvale is the only other city I know of that does the DPS thing.

[Jack L]

All CAL FIRE Battalion Chiefs were supposed to go through POST.....i think funding ran out not too long after they started that. Some BC's are peace officers, some aren't. Most Prevention BC's and Captains are peace officers, but not all. Most other departements are exactly the same way. It's not a "firefighter" thing, it's a "prevention" and "peace officer" thing. If i took a gun to my station, i'd be fired on the spot. we're actually expressly prohibited from having guns on CAL FIRE property as employees.


PS. thanks for saying Firemen.....i appreciate it!!!!

Yes, some of the "prevention" people are the ones who do the LE side of things.

[The Director]

When I took PC832 there were a slew of firemen in that class. They were all from different agencies and all training to be Arson investigators. They were mostly higher level firemen and 832 was all they needed to have peace officer status in the state of CA.

Those 64 hours was the extent of their POST training which irritated the cops who taught it - the firemen were ribbed constantly.

[Jack L]

When I took PC832 there were a slew of firemen in that class. They were all from different agencies and all training to be Arson investigators. They were mostly higher level firemen and 832 was all they needed to have peace officer status in the state of CA.

Those 64 hours was the extent of their POST training which irritated the cops who taught it - the firemen were ribbed constantly.

I just spoke with one of the Cal Fire cops. She did something like four months of training, 64 hours just with firearms. There must be different levels or job descriptions in fire?

[emtnsocali]

I'm a firefighter/arson investigator for a smaller city dept in riverside co. my primary job is as suppression personnel/ems. i too went through pc832 and have limited peace officer powers, but the way our department works is that i can only carry when i am working in the capacity of an investigation/interviewing suspects. as said above if i brought a gun to the station i would most likely be written up, if not fired. some of the clientele we deal with sometime i wish i was carrying. ahhhhh firefighter with a gun.....don't get much better than that.

[spotfire]

The CalFire prevention officers go through the full POST and an FTO program just like any other police/sheriff/CHP in this state, and have the same authority and responsibilities that any state peace officer does. I believe those firefighters that go through just the pc832 do that so they can write citations for fire code or open burning violations.

[MP301]

CalFire has its own Police Academy in Ione and has regular full time peace officers that actually patrol stuff like dams, lakes, etc. under contract. Last i heard, there were about 400 sworn Full time CalFire peace officers.

I believe that battalion chiefs (at least) are also Peace officers and I saw brass (nt sure of rank) from Westpoint in Calaveras County packin eat last year.