LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The Lubbock Professional Firefighters Association is surveying residents about a potential shift change that would give firefighters more time off and create additional jobs.<\/p>\n
The text survey received more than 1,500 responses in two days, with over 86% of respondents supporting the idea, said Joseph Wallace, president of the association.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to go down that rabbit hole unless we knew or had an idea if our citizens would support that. Because that\u2019s who we answer to,\u201d Wallace said.<\/p>\n
Current vs. proposed schedule<\/p>\n
The current Lubbock Fire Department operates on a 24\/48 shift, meaning firefighters work for a full day then have two days to rest. The proposed change would implement a 24\/72 schedule with a four-platoon system.<\/p>\n
The new schedule would cut annual hours by 700 hours and create 133 new job opportunities for Lubbock, Wallace said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what if our men and women at Lubbock Fire had extra time off to fully recover, to get their hormone levels back into place, to get solid sleep? I feel we can take that service even further,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cIt cuts back on that exposure. Can we lower our cancer claims? Can we lower mental health issues? You know, firefighters have a high, high divorce rate. Can we help with that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Benefits for community<\/p>\n
Wallace said the change would benefit residents by providing a larger pool of firefighters during emergencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the benefits to the citizens is that this 24-72, 42-hour workweek schedule is not only refreshing your firefighters because they\u2019re getting more rest and they\u2019re not being exposed as much, but you gain 133 extra firefighters,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cSo if or when a natural disaster comes through, the city now has a larger pool of firefighters to pull from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concerns about current system<\/p>\n
The current shift has been in place for more than 25 years while firefighter responsibilities have increased. Wallace said the department began running emergency medical calls 25 years ago, significantly increasing the workload.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of our members hitting that retirement age now because you have to do 20 years on and 50 years of age,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cI\u2019m concerned that we made that change and that workload has significantly increased, that our average age of mortality is going to slowly start ticking down because of the impact of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next steps<\/p>\n
Wallace said the shift change would not be implemented soon. The next step would be presenting the proposal to the department chief.<\/p>\n
Wallace has also been in contact with the fire department in Plano, Texas, which transitioned to the 24\/72 shift last month. The feedback from firefighters has been positive, Wallace said.<\/p>\n
Wallace encouraged residents to contact their council members if they support the change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this is something they\u2019d like to see or support, you can contact your council members,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cIf this is something you think is beneficial, because it comes down to the health and wellness of our firefighters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The Lubbock Professional Firefighters Association is surveying residents about a potential shift change that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-62293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-lubbock","9":"tag-lubbock-headlines","10":"tag-lubbock-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}