Master Plan Nashua Fire Rescue, NH
The staffing methodology used by Nashua Fire Rescue is very common across the United States for
firefighters working a 10-hour day/14-hour night schedule.
A common industry practice to achieve optimal staffing and efficiency is to determine the appropriate
minimum staffing factor and then the relief factor based on the needed coverage for sick, vacation, and other
unplanned leave.
Minimum Staffing Factor Determination
The starting point for the analysis was to determine the minimum number of personnel needed to fill the
minimum 38 daily staffing positions for fire operations and avoid overtime for unscheduled hours.
Minimum Staffing
= 365 days per year x 24 hours per day = 8,760 hours per year per position.
= 8,760 hours per year x 38 minimum positions daily = 332,880 hours per year that must be staffed for
24/7 coverage.
=" 42-hour workweek equals 2,184 scheduled hours per position annually: 332,880/2,184 = 152.4 FTE
positions for minimum staffing.
= Nashua Fire Rescue currently has 152 FTEs budgeted for operations staffing.
Relief Factor
The next staffing factor to be analyzed is the “relief factor,” or the amount of additional FTE positions needed
to reasonably cover “off time” including, leave, training, vacancies, etc. The following is an industry-accepted
methodology used to determine a relief factor to cover paid leave, training time off, and vacancies
adequately for 24-hour fire and EMS department shifts. Determining the relief factor is outlined in the
following:
= The average of Nashua Fire Rescue FY 2017-19 firefighter paid leave, time off for training, unscheduled
time off, and position vacancies is 54,720 hours annually.
= 54,720 hours divided by the scheduled 2,184 hours per position annually = 25.1 FTEs of annual coverage
required for time off.
= When the total average time off per FTE (360) is subtracted from the total annual hours per FTE (2,184)
the result is an average of 1,824 hours per year actually worked.
= By dividing total annual hours scheduled (2,184) by hours actually worked (1,824), a relief factor of 1.2%
is achieved.
= This results in a total of 176 operational FTEs or 44 FTEs per shift using the 1.2% relief factor.
In some fire and EMS departments, the need to apply the relief factor to a specific rank or classification is
needed based on staffing criteria or these instances. The above exercise considers the entire operations
staffing group and does not distinguish between officer and line staffing or the use of operations staff in other
areas. In these cases, the relief factor may be more or less than the overall number identified here. This
becomes a policy decision and is usually based on specific staffing needs or criteria of the specific rank or
classification in question.
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