I just finished two days at the Cody Fire School on advanced extrication, and three days before that on medical training in Gillette. By the time I get back home, I'll have driven 980+ miles in six days for training.

Not everyone has the time for this, and for all but the union firefighter positions in cities, the pay for EMT's or Paramedics is really quite a poor career choice. With the majority of fire department calls being medical, there is a lot of need to get medical training, and not everyone wants to do that. Once lots of guys find out that the "put wet stuff on red stuff" part of firefighting is pretty infrequent, many lose interest.