Situational Firefighter Interview Questions

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Situational Firefighter Interview Questions

1. You are at a work-related event and a coworker makes an inappropriate comment. What is your response?

2. You notice one of your coworkers saying racially insensitive things to a customer. How do you approach and what do you do?

3. You are the 2nd truck in at a fire and were involved in suppression and overhaul. You notice pain in your wrist that continues. When you get back to the station, what is the first thing you do?

4. You are working for our fire department at station 3. Your station is trained to the awareness level in water rescue. This means you have the training to yell instructions from the shoreline and/or throw a life ring with rope. Your station receives a call for an MVC. When you arrive, you notice one of the vehicles has left the roadway and is upside down in a retention pond that is approximately 20 feet deep. Your captain orders you and your crew to go into the water and make a rescue. What would you do and why?

5. What would you do if you noticed a firefighter showing signs of stress?

6. During recruit training, you will be asked to work as a team. If drama becomes prevalent in your group, how will you handle this and what will you do to help achieve your group’s goal?

7. You notice one of your coworkers saying insensitive things to another coworker. They do not want to escalate, but how do you react?

8. What would you do if you witnessed a firefighter taking a picture on a fire scene and posting it on social media?

9. Captain gives you an order, then another captain gives you a different order. What would you do?

10. How would you deal with an angry citizen?

11. What would you do if an angry citizen approaches you about a complaint with the fire department?

12. You show up at a park for a 10-year-old who is in anaphylactic shock from a bee sting and has an EpiPen but hasn’t been able to administer it. As you get to the patient, your senior firefighter with you looks at you and says, “You got this, right?” and answers his cell and walks away. After the patient leaves with EMS, the senior firefighter rejoins and asks how it went. The captain seems to not be worried. What are your thoughts/reaction to this?

13. What would you do if you noticed a firefighter wearing a department t-shirt at a bar?

14. A coworker tells you he is booking off sick because he couldn’t get the time off and he is going to the cottage. What do you do?

15. Someone is constantly on your back day in and day out; nothing you seem to do is right in their eyes. What would you do and why?

16. During a conversation with a team member, they tell you that they don’t want anyone on this team who belongs to the LGBTQ or a minority group. How will you handle this situation?

17. During your probationary period, you are part of a crew that responds to a fire, and your apparatus is first arriving. Your crew is not wearing their PPE as you’ve been trained, and the captain says make sure your PPE is done up. The senior firefighter tells you the captain is overly cautious and you don’t need to wear your chin strap or ear flaps. How will you handle this situation?

18. As a probationary firefighter, you are working with a crew member that is constantly negative. What would you do and why?

19. What is diversity, and why is diversity important to the fire service? What would you do if you overheard a fellow firefighter making derogatory comments of a racial nature?

20. How would you handle physical and mental stressors as a firefighter?

21. Your captain routinely assigns you undesirable tasks at the emergency scene and at the fire hall. What do you do?

22. You are in public and notice a fellow firefighter taking a video and uploading it on the internet. You also notice they are not acting unprofessionally. What would you do and why?

23. Would you ever disobey an order? Would you ever disobey an order as a firefighter?

24. You respond to an MVC accident: a two-car collision with 4 people. Two people in each vehicle. One car is on its side and there is a power line on top of it. Fluid is leaking out of the car. What would you do and why?

25. Describe what you would do if you came back from a call and an irate member of the public was there and you were the only one available to speak with them.

26. You are shown a picture of a firefighter doing the dab in front of a house that’s on fire. What do you think about it?

27. You show up for a shift as the pump driver and find out that the rear emergency lights aren’t working. Your regular captain is not in, and there is an acting captain who says, “Don’t worry about it, we probably won’t get a call. Let the next shift worry about it.” What do you do?

28. You are at a party off duty with another firefighter who has clearly had a few drinks. You leave the party at 10, but the other firefighter stays longer. The following morning, a firefighter calls in sick, and the firefighter from the party last night is called in to replace him. He confides to you at the beginning of your shift at 8 that morning that he was at the party until 3 in the morning and is “going to need a lot of coffee to get through this shift.” What do you do and why?

29. You arrive at a house fire in a dense subdivision where the houses are separated by only the width of a driveway. The structure is fully involved, with flames coming out of the upper-story windows. It is raining, and the adjacent houses are not on fire. The people from the houses are all outside watching. One of the civilians motions to you and tells you frantically that her dog is inside one of the neighboring houses. Another man angrily asks why he can’t return to his house, as it is not on fire. What do you do and why?

30. You overhear some firefighters making jokes about an openly gay firefighter who also works at the station. What do you do and why?

31. One of the recruits in your recruit class is struggling and is behind the other recruits in terms of skills. He confides to you that he is thinking of quitting. What do you do and why?

32. Your captain tells you that you haven’t been performing up to his/her standards, and even though you believe you have been performing all tasks correctly, he/she is unsatisfied with your performance. What do you do and why?

33. Chief gives an order that you don’t agree with. What do you do on the fire ground? Non-emergency?

34. You notice a colleague who smells like alcohol. What do you do?

35. What would you do if you saw someone trapped inside a burning building after your shift?

36. Someone on your crew reveals to you that they are gay. What would you do if you overheard your captain making jokes about someone who is gay? Would you inform their superior about the incident?

37. Firefighters in another station are posting pictures and making comments about other firefighters in the department that you know and are making fun of them about a call. You have come across this randomly on social media. What do you do?

38. Tell us the importance of mental health and how you would deal with it.

39. Your captain goes against a standard operation guideline. What do you do?

40. You’re in the kitchen and other firefighter(s) are making sexist and racist jokes. What do you do?

41. How would you keep busy during downtime?

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