You're talking about years ago, and not in recent times. As we said before, it's very easy to criticize something from the outside looking in. What people often didn't see is people spending hours online waiting for a call, to get dispatched out finally, only to arrive on scene and have the player accept death immediately. That is very demotivating. This is a more niche area of roleplay. We're not law enforcement officers, we're not out patrolling the streets, we don't have the ability to just interact with people on a traffic stop, or other altercation. We're there when there's a fire, which due to the server rules, was rare, or in the case of medical emergencies that could be handled within our scope. Many people were salty over losing a shootout, and would often rush through medical roleplay, or PM us to tell us to hurry, or they'd AFK / force a crash to avoid the medical roleplay, simply because they didn't want to do it.
During my time in the faction I've had members request fires a multitude of times, and when we had Admins available, they were so excited to participate. In the days of old, when I first joined in 2019, and before that, there was a certain lack of interest in the firefighting side. That changed with Genny becoming the Chief, and with the current team we have now. They're very dedicated, and have all contributed to a more equal interest in each half of our faction. We're a Fire Department, but we can't force players to be arsonists, just as you can't force people in real life to be arsonists. Even for our real life-counterpart, 75% of the LAFD's calls are medical based. We're a service to the public in their time of need, we can't force people to injure themselves, we're there in case of emergency. It's to be expected that we'll have slower shifts, and sometimes people don't realize how slow it'll be, which is why we always encouraged passive roleplay between faction members. This wasn't always obtainable because of different time zones, but it's a game, and we made do with what we could.
Players might not always have an entire day to play the game. So if an Admin started a fire without checking that FD had enough units on, to see them log off "immediately after the 911 call", then that's to be expected. Clear communication between faction and Administration would be needed for a pre-set fire. And as I said, waiting hours for calls only to be left with nothing can be demotivating. I'm speaking from experience when there were never any active Firefighters on when I'd first joined, in my time zone and play time at least. Genny and I have worked very hard in conjunction with our current team to get everyone in a much more active state. The server itself was lower on activity in the months leading up to its closing, so with a slower server, it wasn't always guaranteed to have bustling shifts every single day.
You're also probably thinking of the old days of training. I've personally been responsible for recruitment and training for the last year. Nothing was ever copy/pasted, nor was it in the year before that when Genny was leading it. She and I always made it personal, and interacted with everyone involved. Trainings are detailed enough that players can comprehend what is to be expected of them on-duty should they graduate, whether or not they have any prior medical knowledge or experience.
You were a recruit during my time, but had left the server shortly into your time in FD, so you didn't get to see much of the current faction from an insider's perspective. You left the faction on January 12th of 2020—nearly two years ago. You never joined the Training and Support Bureau either, so you didn't get to see the manuals for the division which I personally wrote. Genny and I disallowed copy and paste formats, as we wanted each class to be personal, and unique to the class at hand. While the material was the same at its base, you'd never experience the same class twice, just because of how different each recruit was. No two recruits asked the same question in the same way, and some would roleplay more in-depth, while others wouldn't, which just comes with the territory of a roleplay community.
As for the length, we can only go by what was done on SAMP. The EMT classes took anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how fast recruits would type, or how much they wanted to participate and engage in banter with the instructor(s). There is a lot to go over, and the majority of it is typing, because you need to explain the core of medical scenes, and explain everything that comes with handling them.
Our firefighting classes took anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour, again depending on the recruits' participation, and how much they wanted to hear from or talk with instructors. One of our Captains who is in TSB was very dedicated, and enjoyed giving everyone more detailed lectures, and encouraged a back and forth Q&A session before or after each class.
Academies are a crucial part of the faction's foundation, because these classes allow a safe and comfortable environment for recruits to learn the ropes, without the fear of being shot by some random gangster, or having their screen flooded with a bunch of random text that has nothing to do with their learning experience. This gives them a sense of what to expect from the faction before they're in the Field Training Program phase, so they'll be less overwhelmed when their first shift comes about.
Genny and I are adamant on maintaining a personalized academy experience with the upcoming V server. Nothing will ever be a copy/paste! 🙂