Firefighter thoughts and stories.

[jmz95]

I know that if you hover over the grade it will tell you the times you need to reach certain grades.  I think it's under 3 hours to get an A on a large house fire.

Some things you can do to speed up your time.  Upgrade your fire engine to speed up how long it takes you to get to the emergency.  And upgrade your fire extinguisher, you can do this by clicking on your Sim.  The option will come up when you have a high enough mechanical skill.

I think if you work on your athletic skill it will become easier to break down the doors.

Right, but the house that had the fire was literally next door to the fire station (this is in SV), but athletic skill probably would have helped. The extinguisher would have helped also, but I already knew about that stuff. I was just wondering if anyone had any tips or tricks to help out with time. Also, where would I hover the pointer over? Is it in the job box thing that shows up when handling an emergency? I know that shows what your current grade is, but like I said before, that won't show up for me.

[TommyT]

Start with fires first, because they will spread and create more work.  The Sims will always be there so I keep them for last.  If there are any ground fires outside the house I'll take care of them ASAP then move on to window fires.  Once those are out I can break in and work on the interior fires.  Save the adult Sims first because they run out under their own power, save children and infants last since you have to physically carry them out.  It all seems kinda backwards from how it's done in real life lol.

[Metropolis Man]

....save children and infants last since you have to physically carry them out.  It all seems kinda backwards from how it's done in real life lol.

Yeah, really. "Ma'am, please..stop screaming at me. Let me put out this window fire and then I'll go in and get your child."

[jmz95]

So, what if a Sim dies because I didn't get to them fast enough? Then what am I supposed to do, live with the guilt?   But seriously, if someone dies, don't you automatically get a lower letter grade, or an F?

[Saltypaws]

I finally had to get my firefighters wife a car.  She had taken the firetruck on a shopping excursion and the alarm went off.  The fire was not very far from where he lived, so he ran to the fire, now I am thinking in a non-sim way, if he does not have his fire truck, how is he going to put out the bigger fires in the window.  I clicked on the wife to get the truck to the fire and was shocked to see her run over and use the hose to help put out with the fire.    I guess maybe this was her way of making up for the fact she had the truck.  Needless to say, when they got home, I bought her a car. lol.

[Branr]

The only thing that's really annoying me is having to upgrade the personal extinguisher after almost every use.

[TommyT]

So, what if a Sim dies because I didn't get to them fast enough? Then what am I supposed to do, live with the guilt?   But seriously, if someone dies, don't you automatically get a lower letter grade, or an F?

I've actually never seen that.  Now that I'm thinking about it I don't think I've seen a fire in a room with a trapped Sim, maybe just for this reason.

[revstevew]

My solution was to have my sims sign up as a firefighting husband and wife.  With both of them working for the fire you get the option to "Attend the emergency with" and then select your partner.  This way the one would go on to auto pilot putting out fires while the other could be sent to what you want them to do.

It worked for both of them up to lvl 10, although only got the one fire engine for at home.

[AriaGirl77]

My solution was to have my sims sign up as a firefighting husband and wife.  With both of them working for the fire you get the option to "Attend the emergency with" and then select your partner.  This way the one would go on to auto pilot putting out fires whilste the other could be sent to what you want them to do.

It worked for both of them up to lvl 10, although only got the one fire engine for at home.

Wow!  That's really a great idea to have a duo in the same career.  Especially makes since for firefighting.

By the way, welcome to the forum!

[revstevew]

I thought so.   My next plan is when the children are old enough seeing if an entire family can fire fight, then try it with the other "emergency profession" ghostbusting.  Just wish there was a career vehicle for that.

[Icemink]

So, what if a Sim dies because I didn't get to them fast enough? Then what am I supposed to do, live with the guilt?   But seriously, if someone dies, don't you automatically get a lower letter grade, or an F?

Funny thing, my first big house fire I hadn't figured out about the window fires (I had walls down so I didn't see them) so I was having a hard time getting in. There was an elderly Sim in the living room, and she actually died of old age while I was trying to find the window fires.  My own mistakes took me so long I got an F but the counter for number of Sims to save simply changed from 4to 3 so if I'd known what I was doing I think I still could have pulled off an A. 

[Saltypaws]

I found out the hard way too, that you have to put the walls up to see the window fires.  They should really tell a person that, lol.

[MomOfMany]

The other day when I was playing, I got my first large house fire. However, it took me over 6 hours to complete! Does anyone know a fast way to finish large house fires? What I did was put out the window fires to get inside, and there were 3 people to convince to run. I guess the thing that slowed me down was the fact that it took me three tries to break down one door, and overall I had 3 failed door breaking attempts. I got a C on the emergency, but does anyone know the maximum time to get an A on a large house fire?

On another note, for some reason my job panel thing that tells me what I have to do at an emergency has disappeared. I used to get the box coming from my firefighter's picture with little check boxes that told me how many people to save and such; now it won't appear. Is it because I already have an uncompleted opportunity?

I don't know why it does not appear but this has happened to me before and if you go to the career panel there is a little button so to speak I believe it is under the go to work option that you can click and it will bring that little panel back up for you! Hope that helps!

[Branr]

Found a bug with the personal extinguisher today after testing.  I started with a saved game that had my FF needing to upgrade (again).  Saved after upgrading, saved as... and logged to main menu.  Logged back into the new saved game, and sure enough, the extinguisher needed to be upgraded again.  Loaded the first save, upgraded again, and played out for several hours, checking after each fire and such, and never needed an upgrade.  Checked one last time (fine), saved, logged out and back in again, and sure enough, I needed an upgrade.

Basically, when your game saves, it is NOT saving the upgrade.

For reference, the upgrade I refer to is the one that gives the orange discharge from the nozzle.

[Saltypaws]

Not sure if anyone has had their firefighter retire or not, but after the FF calls on phone to retire, the members of the family clap and have signs and are hooping and hollering, pretty neat and the best thing, is they make almost 10,000 simoleons a week and compared to before ambitions, that is great.