[megaman22]

Where I grew up, there are no professional firefighters; it's all volunteer, just something people did as a hobby, basically. I think they might elect their own chief and officers, or it might be on the public ballot, with the dog catcher and other town positions. Usually, there's nobody on duty at the station, so when a call comes in from the 911 dispatch at county or wherever, their pagers or cellphones go off and they leave work to rush to the station, gear up, and go out.