Firefighter recruitment: pay, age, fitness and timing.

Recruit pay across the AU services lands roughly between A$70,000 and A$80,000 a year while you're at the college, rising to around A$90,000 to A$110,000 once you're a qualified firefighter on shift, before penalties and overtime. FRNSW, FRV and ACTFR publish the current bands on their recruitment pages — check the live numbers there before you plan around them.

Most Australian services set the minimum at 18 at the time of application. There is no published upper age limit at FRNSW, FRV, QFD, MFS, DFES, TFS, ACTFR or NTFRS — eligibility is tied to passing the PAT and medical, not a number. FENZ is the same. Older candidates are common; the binding constraint is fitness, not date of birth.

You need to be an Australian or New Zealand citizen, or a permanent resident, for every AU career service. Some services also require you to have held residency for a minimum period before applying — check the service's own eligibility page for the current rule. FENZ requires NZ citizenship or permanent residency.

The national fallback used by most services is roughly a beep test at level 9.6, 25 push-ups in a minute, a 60-second plank and 40 kg grip. FRNSW and ACTFR sit above that (around level 10.5 to 10.6 on the beep, 30 push-ups, 45 kg grip). Train past your service's published minimums, not exactly to them — the PAT is graded on cumulative fatigue, not a single max effort.

From application to a college start date, expect roughly 9 to 18 months at most AU services. The cognitive and PAT stages can move quickly (weeks), but the merit-list and college-intake cadence is what stretches the calendar. Plan your training as a 12-month project, not a 6-week sprint.

Each service runs to its own calendar. FRNSW and FRV typically run one to two recruitment rounds a year. QFD, MFS, DFES and ACTFR open when intake is needed — sometimes annually, sometimes less. TFS and NTFRS run small, irregular intakes. Subscribe to each service's recruitment alerts directly; FirePrep's blog covers the cycles we know about as they're announced.