Dearborn will hire firefighter candidates before they finish paramedic or fire certification, under a new deal with its union

DEARBORN — Dearborn is changing how it hires firefighters, opening its doors to recruits who are only partway through the state certifications the job requires and paying them while they finish.

Fire Chief Joseph Murray and the Dearborn Firefighters Association Local 412 reached the agreement as Michigan faces what the city called record shortages of licensed paramedics, the city announced Oct. 28.

Under the deal, the department will create a firefighter candidate position. It is open to two kinds of applicants: people who already hold state Firefighter 2 and EMT-Basic certification but have not finished paramedic licensing, and licensed paramedics who have not yet finished firefighter certification.

New hires will be employed while they complete the rest of their training. Once they finish and are fully certified as firefighter/paramedics, they move automatically into Firefighter 1 positions, the city said.

More for experienced hires. The agreement also lets fully certified applicants seek a higher starting salary, and allows firefighters coming from other departments to buy their prior service time. The city did not list the new pay figures or what it expects the program to cost.

Why it matters here. Every one of the department’s full-time firefighters is dual-certified as a paramedic, according to the city’s fire department page, so a shortage of paramedics is also a shortage of firefighter applicants. The department answers about 18,000 calls a year from five stations with six ambulances, covering 28 square miles and a daytime population of about 300,000, on an annual budget of about $32 million.

“This agreement eliminates potential barriers to acquiring certifications for those interested in fire service, while also incentivizing those who are fully certified to seek out employment with the DFD,” Murray said.

Union President Jeffrey Lentz said the members are “happy to collaborate with Mayor Hammoud and the Fire Chief,” and said he hopes the change will “attract home grown candidates from our community and the communities that surround us.”

A bigger department. The mayor and City Council recently approved raising the number of sworn firefighters from 146 to 158, which the city called the highest staffing level in the department’s 119-year history. The Mitten Daily reported Oct. 20 on the federal SAFER grant the council accepted to help pay for 12 more firefighters.

Applications are posted at dearborn.gov/jobs.

Sources:
City of Dearborn, “Dearborn Fire Chief, Union partner on innovative recruitment and training initiative to address statewide paramedic shortage,” Oct. 28, 2026 (program terms, quotes, 146-to-158 staffing), https://dearborn.gov/government/news-communication/Dearborn-Fire-Chief-Union-partner-on-innovative-recruitment-and-training-initiative-to-address-statewide-paramedic-shortage
City of Dearborn, Dearborn Fire Department page (dual certification, calls, stations, ambulances, budget), https://dearborn.gov/government/police-fire/fire-services/dearborn-fire-department-0
Photo: Rmhermen, “Dearborn, Michigan fire department ambulance.jpg,” Aug. 6, 2016, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped and color-adjusted, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dearborn,_Michigan_fire_department_ambulance.jpg

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Tags: Dearborn · Dearborn Fire Department · Firefighters · Paramedics · Jobs · Public Safety