3-Platoon Fire Schedule

A platoon is a crew that rotates together as a unit. In career fire and EMS, the whole department splits its line personnel into platoons, almost always three, labeled A shift, B shift, and C shift. On any given day, one platoon is on duty in the station while the other two are off, and they hand the station off to each other in a fixed order that never changes.

The platoon count is the layer underneath the schedule, not the schedule itself. A 24/48, a 48/96, and a 9-day Kelly swing are all different ways to arrange the same three platoons across the calendar. Pick the platoon layer first and the weekly-hours math is already decided; the pattern on top of it only changes the tour length and the shape of the days off.

Coverage has to run every hour of every day: 24 hours across 7 days is 168 hours of staffing a week for one seat on the apparatus. Split that evenly across three platoons and each platoon carries 168 divided by 3, which is exactly 56.0 hours a week. That single division is the root of the 56-hour number you hear at every contract table, and it holds for any 3-platoon pattern regardless of whether the tour is 24 hours or 48.

Annualized, 56 hours a week is about 2,912 hours a year before any reductions. It does not matter whether the department runs a 24/48, a 48/96, or the classic 9-day swing: as long as three platoons split the calendar evenly, every firefighter lands on the same 56-hour average. The tour length changes how the hours feel, not how many there are.

The 24/48 is the most common 3-platoon arrangement: one 24-hour shift, then 48 hours off, with A, B, and C each working one day out of every three. The 48/96 stacks two 24-hour days into a single 48-hour tour followed by four days off, and still uses three platoons, so it averages the same 56 hours. The 9-day Kelly swing spreads five on-duty days across a nine-day cycle for the same three crews, which again averages 56 hours.

It is worth being precise here: a nine-day swing cycle by itself does not cut anyone's hours below 56. It is still a 3-platoon arrangement of the same 168 hours. Hours only come down when a department ADDS a recurring Kelly day, an extra scheduled day off dropped into the rotation, which pulls the average toward roughly 50 to 51 hours a week. The Kelly day calculator models that reduction in detail; the pages for the 24/48 and 48/96 model each tour shape.

The way a department lowers the average without adding piecemeal Kelly days is to add a whole platoon. Split the same 168 hours of weekly coverage across four platoons instead of three and each crew carries 168 divided by 4, which is 42.0 hours a week. That is the 24/72 schedule: one 24-hour shift followed by three days off, with A, B, C, and D in rotation.

The tradeoff is staffing. A fourth platoon means roughly a third more line personnel to fill every seat, so a 24/72 costs meaningfully more to staff than a 24/48 for the same coverage. In exchange, the 42-hour average sits under the FLSA 7(k) overtime cap, so a four-platoon schedule builds in close to zero scheduled overtime. Three platoons buy lower headcount at the price of built-in overtime; four platoons buy lower hours and near-zero scheduled overtime at the price of headcount. The 24/72 calculator lays out the four-platoon side.

Because exactly one platoon works each day and the order never changes, you can figure out any date from a single known one. Enter one real on-duty day for your platoon in the calculator above and it phases the entire A/B/C rotation from that anchor date, then lists your on-duty days going forward. No lookup table and no counting on your fingers.

Once the rotation is anchored, the tool projects your platoon's days for the next 24 months, overlays US federal holidays so you can see which ones you work, and lets you download the schedule as an .ics calendar or share it with a link. Change the anchor date and the whole projection re-phases to match your actual shift.

Fire departments do not measure overtime on a 40-hour week. Under the FLSA 7(k) public-safety exemption they declare a work period of up to 28 days, and for fire protection employees a 28-day period caps straight time at 212 hours. A 56-hour-average 3-platoon schedule runs about 224 hours in that same 28 days, which is roughly 12 hours over the cap, or about 3 hours a week.

That means a straight 3-platoon rotation carries about 12 hours of overtime baked into every 28-day period before anyone picks up a single extra shift. Held-over calls, mandatory overtime, and traded shifts all stack on top of that floor. Shorter declared work periods scale the cap down: 204 hours for 27 days, 182 for 24, 106 for 14, and 53 for 7. The FLSA 7(k) calculator works out the exact position for whatever work period your department declares.