Your Ride-Along Is a Working Interview. Show Up Ready.

The Fire Department Ride-Along: What to Expect and How to Use It to Get Hired

By Ryan Coffey, firefighter at the Port of Seattle Fire Department. Six years on the Everett Fire Department hiring panel. Updated August 2026.

Most candidates treat a ride-along like a field trip. They show up, try not to be in the way, take a photo of the engine, and go home having learned nothing they can use.

That's a waste of the single best day of preparation available to you, and it's free.

Here's what nobody tells you: a ride-along is the cheapest way to gather the exact material that wins points in the oral board months later. When a panel asks why you want to work for this department, the candidates who have something real to say almost always got it standing in a bay, not reading a website.

This guide covers what actually happens, how to behave, and specifically what to walk away with.

Is a fire department ride-along a real interview?

Yes. Treat it like one. Nobody hands you a scoresheet and nothing goes in a file, but you are spending a full shift inside a small building with people whose opinion carries weight, and firefighters talk. The crew forms a view of you inside the first hour, and that view travels. Show up like you would for the oral board itself.

On top of that, it does three things for you that nothing else does:

• It gives you specific, firsthand material for the questions that decide your score
• It tells you whether you actually want this job, which is worth knowing before you spend two years chasing it
• It puts a face to your name inside the department

Before the ride-along

How to get one

Most departments run ride-alongs through a form on their website, often under Community, Ride-Along Program, or Contact. Some route it through a specific station, some through administration, some through the community risk or public education office.

Most ride-alongs run around eight hours, but it is department specific, so confirm the length when you schedule rather than assuming.

Lead time varies widely too. Some departments schedule within a week. Others require a background check and take a month or more. Apply earlier than you think you need to, especially if you are trying to complete one before a specific testing cycle.

Common requirements you should expect to encounter, though every department sets its own:

• A minimum age, often 18, sometimes 21
• A signed liability waiver
• Some form of background check, occasionally fingerprinting
• Proof of ID
• A dress code, which they will usually specify

Do this before a hiring process opens, not during one. Many departments suspend ride-alongs entirely once an active hiring process is underway, specifically to avoid any appearance of favoritism toward candidates. If you wait until the job posting drops, you may find the door has already closed.

If the department is not currently hiring, say in your request that you are preparing to test there. Some departments prioritize serious candidates.

What to confirm before you show up

Ask, in writing, and get answers:

• Start time and end time, and whether you can leave early if you need to
• Which station, and where to park
• What to wear
• Whether meals are provided or you should bring your own
• Whether you can bring a bag, and where it goes
• Whether there are restrictions on where you can go on a call

That last one matters more than people realize. Some departments will let you into structures once a scene is stable. Many will not let you leave the apparatus at all on medical calls. Knowing the boundary in advance means you won't have to be told twice.

What to bring

• Your own food, plus a way to pay for a crew meal. If you are invited to eat with them, you are expected to pay your portion. Ask what you owe, and do not make anyone ask you twice. Bring cash and have Venmo or PayPal ready, because you will not know in advance which one they use.
• Water. More than you think.
• A small notebook for after, not during. More on this below.
• Clean, plain black shoes. Black sneakers are usually fine. Closed-toe either way.
• A jacket, regardless of season. You may be standing outside at 3am.
• Nothing else. No camera, no tripod, no GoPro.

What to wear

Ask the department first, because some issue a shirt or have a specific policy. Absent direction: dark blue or black pants and a plain polo. Black sneakers or plain black shoes. A belt.

No jeans. A dark t-shirt may be acceptable at some departments, but it is not what I'd recommend. The point is to look professional and make a good impression, and a polo does that where a t-shirt only avoids doing harm.

What to leave at home:

• Anything with another department's logo on it, unless you work there
• Fire service t-shirts, challenge coin displays, Maltese cross jewelry, anything that signals you're a fan
• Shorts, sandals, tank tops
• Strong cologne, which is genuinely miserable in a confined cab
• Political or slogan clothing of any kind

The goal is that nobody comments on what you're wearing in either direction, except to notice you took it seriously.

What actually happens on a ride-along

The rhythm surprises people. It is not what television prepared you for.

You'll arrive around shift change, usually early morning. Crews are checking apparatus, swapping information from the previous shift, and generally busy for the first hour. Introduce yourself, then stay out of the way.

Most of the day is not calls. It's rig checks, training, station maintenance, meal prep, reports, public education visits, hydrant testing, and sitting around. The ratio of waiting to working is much higher than candidates expect, and how you handle that ratio says something.

Most calls are medical. Depending on the department, EMS is commonly the majority of call volume, often a large majority. If you are hoping to see a working fire, you will probably be disappointed, and that expectation is itself worth examining before you commit to this career.

When a call drops, move immediately and get in your assigned seat. You will be told where that is. Buckle in. Do not ask questions on the way. Watch.

On scene, stay where you are put. If you are told to stay on the rig, stay on the rig, even if nothing appears to be happening. If you are allowed off, stand where you can see and where you are not in a path. Your job is to occupy zero attention.

You may see something hard. Medical calls involve real people on the worst day of their life, and there is no way to know in advance whether your shift includes one. If a call gets to you, step back and take a minute. Nobody will hold that against you, and every person on that crew has had the same moment. What they will notice, and remember, is someone treating a bad call as entertainment.

How to behave

This is the part that matters, and most of it is simpler than people make it.

Be useful without being underfoot. Carry something if asked. Help clean up after a meal without being asked. Stand up when the crew stands up. Do not attempt to help with equipment, patients, or anything on a scene unless explicitly directed.

Talk less than you want to. Enthusiasm is good. Filling every silence is not. The most common feedback I have heard about candidates on ride-alongs is not that they were quiet. It's the other one.

Do not try to prove you know things. This is the single most common mistake, especially from volunteers and academy graduates. Nobody on that crew needs to hear your assessment of their tactics. If you have relevant experience and it comes up naturally, mention it once, plainly, and move on.

Stay off your phone. Especially in quarters, especially during downtime, and absolutely on a scene. Downtime is when the actual conversation happens, and a candidate looking at his phone during it is signalling something.

No photos. None. Not of the apparatus, not of the station, not of anything on a call, not for your own private collection. If someone offers to take one at the end of the day, that's different. Never initiate.

Do not post about it. Not that day, not that week. No stories, no check-ins, nothing. Patient privacy is a legal matter and department image is a political one, and you are a guest with no standing in either.

Eat with them, and pay your share. If the crew eats together, eat together. Sitting apart reads as either aloof or uncomfortable, and neither helps you. Being invited to the table is not a free meal, it is an invitation into how the firehouse works. Ask what you owe before anyone has to bring it up, and settle it that day.

Thank them and leave when it's time. Don't linger past your end time hoping for one more call.

Questions worth asking

Downtime is your opportunity, but the questions have to be good ones. Ask about their experience, not about your candidacy.

Good:

• What does a normal shift here actually look like?
• What surprised you most in your first year?
• What do you wish you'd known before you got hired?
• What kind of calls do you run most?
• What's changed here in the last few years?
• How did you end up at this department specifically?
• What makes someone easy to work with on a crew?

Ask once, carefully, and only if the conversation is already there:

• Is there anything you'd want a candidate to know before testing here?

Don't ask:

• Anything that amounts to "how do I get hired here," repeatedly. Once is fine. Three times is a job interview they didn't agree to.
• Anything about pay, overtime, or pension, on day one, from a stranger
• Anything about a specific call you saw that day, unless they bring it up
• Anything that requires them to criticize their department, their officers, or another crew
• "What's the worst thing you've ever seen?" Never ask this. It's the question every civilian asks and it lands badly every time.

What to walk away with

Here is where a ride-along stops being a nice experience and starts being preparation.

Write nothing down during the day. A candidate taking notes in a firehouse looks like an inspector. Wait until you are in your car at the end, then spend fifteen minutes writing before you drive home. You will forget more than you expect by the next morning.

Capture these:

Specifics about the department. How many calls did you run and what types? What stations did you hear mentioned? What equipment did you see? What did the crew complain about, and what were they proud of? What's changing there? These are the details that turn "you have a great reputation" into an answer a panel can actually score.

Language. How do they refer to their own department, their units, their roles? Using a department's own vocabulary correctly in an interview signals that you have been there, and using it incorrectly signals the opposite, so only use what you actually heard.

One or two moments. Not war stories. Small, specific things: how a captain talked to a scared patient, how the crew reset the rig without discussing it, something someone said during a meal that told you what they value. These become the concrete detail behind an answer about why this department, or what you admire about the job.

Your honest reaction. Did the downtime bother you? Did the medical calls sit right? Was the culture something you'd want? Write it down honestly, because this is the only chance you'll get to answer that question before you're committed.

I'll be direct about how this pays off: when a panel asks why you want to work for their department, roughly every candidate says some version of "great reputation, great people." A candidate who says something specific that could only have come from being there is doing something the other twenty candidates that day are not.

After the ride-along

Send a short thank-you email to whoever arranged it, within a day or two. Three or four sentences. Thank them for the time, name one specific thing you appreciated or learned, and stop. Do not attach a resume. Do not ask about openings. Do not ask to come back.

If a specific crew member spent real time with you and offered contact information, a brief separate note is fine. If they didn't offer, don't hunt for it.

Do one more, at a different department, if you're testing at more than one. And do a second one at your top-choice department only if enough time has passed that you're not becoming a fixture. There is a line between keen and constant, and crews notice which side you're on.

The mistakes that get you remembered badly

These are the ones that actually travel, in rough order of how often I have heard about them.

Talking too much. By a wide margin the most common.

Trying to demonstrate knowledge. Correcting, assessing, comparing to another department, or explaining the job to people who do it.

Treating a bad call as content. Any hint of excitement about someone else's emergency.

Phone use. Particularly during downtime, which the candidate reads as free time and the crew reads as a conversation you opted out of.

Not paying for the meal. Or having to be asked. This one gets talked about in the kitchen after you leave.

Getting off the rig when told not to. This one is not a social error, it's a safety and liability error, and it is the one that generates an actual phone call.

Name-dropping. Mentioning who you know at the department, especially anyone senior.

Common questions about fire department ride-alongs

Turning a ride-along into an interview answer

Everything above gets you a good day. What turns it into a score is what you do with it afterward, and that comes down to whether you can take a specific thing you saw and build it into an answer that holds up in front of a panel.

That's the harder half, and it's what my oral board guide covers question by question: what the panel is actually listening for on each of the 22 questions they'll ask you, including the two where ride-along material does the most work.

If you want help turning what you gathered into answers you can deliver cold in the room, that's what my programs are built for. Book a free 30-minute call and I'll tell you honestly where you are.