When house fires happen on Hanover Avenue in the city of Roanoke, Fire EMS crews respond.
Depending on the situation, there's a price the department has to pay for it.
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"It's usually when we have a lot of people sick or family medical leave or have a huge number of vacancies does our overtime go up," says Chief Dave Hoback, Chief of Roanoke Fire EMS.
We found out Fire EMS paid more than $214,000 last year in overtime. However the numbers are going down.
Between July 2012 to March 2013, Fire EMS racked up about $120,000 in overtime. In the same time period this year, the fire department paid $11,000 less one thing that has helped the department save money by managing their staff better throughout the day.
There are 61 firefighters staffed in a day. Right now there are 235 firefighters in the department and with the recruit school, Fire EMS is fully staffed.
Right now Chief Hoback says fewer people are leaving and the department is now over hiring for the recruit school since some people don't make it to graduation.