40 cadets graduate from Austin Fire Department academy

AUSTIN, Texas – The Austin Fire Department’s Cadet Class 139 graduated on Friday, July 25.

Forty firefighters were in this cadet class. At the end of the ceremony, the cadets found out where they’ll be stationed.

Chase Horan will be at Fire Station 17 on South 1st Street. 

“Extremely excited, extremely blessed, just grateful for this opportunity and to get to go and to do this job,” he said. “I wanted to serve the community that I work in. I love the aspect of service for this job.”

Assistant Chief Tom Vocke says this class size is on par with other class sizes. There were about 90 vacancies before this class graduated. There are typically two to three cadet classes a year.

“We opened a station last year, so every time we open a station, there are additional positions. Also it’s based on the amount of attrition and number of retirements we have each year,” Vocke said.

He says the next graduating class has 37 cadets, and a class of 43 starts in August. Vocke says they typically can keep up with vacancies.

“We’re going to be very near fully staffed at some point early next year,” he said.

The 28-week training program teaches everything from firefighting to rescues to medical calls.

“It was a grind, that’s for sure. It was lots of hard work, lots of sweat, but a lot of fun. It was very good to get all this training from the best of the best,” Horan said. “I’m excited to get to put all this training to use and to actually do it in real life.”

The cadets will be probationary firefighters for 24 weeks at stations across the city.

“It’s great to witness their growth as individuals and, you know, to see them be able to transform from the folks that we had sitting taking a written exam to being on a fire truck this weekend,” Vocke said.

The number of firefighters on trucks is a recent point of debate at City Hall. The city’s proposed budget would cut $8.3 million from firefighter overtime by having three-person crews on some trucks instead of four.

“Right now, we’re maintaining our four-person crews. Getting these folks out on trucks absolutely reduces the amount of overtime that we pay on a daily basis,” Vocke said.