Fulltime operational:
On a 39 hour week working shift work across 4 watches A, B, C and D. 
12 of the 15 stations are fulltime the other 3 being retained. Firefighters in all fulltime stations (with the exception of Dun Laoghaire) rotate from fire to ambulance duties. Our control room is manned by firefigthters who rotate from fire to control room duties.

Retained:
Crews are on a pocket alerter paging system which alerts crews to respond to go to their station and from there to an incident. These firefighters are paid a yearly retaining fee and a per call fee. They are usually self employed and must live and work near to the station in order to be able to respond within a few minutes. While they do not operate on the ambulance they have all been trained in first aid responder skills such as CPR (Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) and care of spinal injuries) 

Training Centre:
Staff are attached to the training centre for a period of time on a 9-5 weekday basis to teach courses which take place at the training centre.

Fire Investigation:
Currently Gardai (police) carry out all forensic investigation at fire scenes however a number of officers have been trained up with a view to forming a fire investigation unit.

Command Structure:
The responsibilities of each are only a very brief description as there are many areas such as control room, training, specialist vehicles etc. which are not outlined here.
Also the more senior an officer the more responsibility they have with regard to running the brigade. Third officers and above work 9-5 hours and are on call for serious fires / incidents.
 

Rank	Responsibility	Number
Chief Fire Officer	In charge of whole the brigade.	1
Assistant C.F.O.	In charge of Fire, Ambulance, Admin etc.	5
Third Officer	In charge of a district on all watches. Also a management function	9
District Officer	In charge of several stations on one watch.	28 (approx.)
Station Officer	In charge of one station on one watch	60 (approx.)
Sub-Officer	In charge of second appliance in a two pump station. Control room duty in HQ	56 (approx.)
Firefighter	At the coal face of all incidents. Operates ambulances and control room	600+ (approx.)

All new recruits under go a four month fire training course in the O Brien Institute Training Centre before going operational as a fulltime firefighter. The course includes basic firefighting, a 2 week breathing apparatus course, one week pump operators course, one week road traffic accident course, hot fire training (flash over, backdraught), marine firefighting course, water rescue and control room operations.
In addition new recruits must complete a seven week EMT-Basic course and long internship in order to work on an ambulance.
Other training and responses by Dublin Fire Brigade are Swiftwater Rescue Techncian, Boat rescue, Marine Firefighting, heights rescue( currently being set up)

There are either one or two pump stations with nearly all two pump stations having one or more specialist vehicles such as turntable ladders, emergency rescue tenders, hydraulic platforms, decontamination units etc. For a full breakdown see the stations page.