Are you passionate about serving your community and looking for a career that challenges and rewards you in equal measure? Look no further than the Portage Fire Department.
Why Choose Portage Fire Department?
Build a career that challenges you, supports you, and gives you room to grow.
The Portage Fire Department is a full-time career department serving nearly 38,000 residents across a diverse area of Northwest Indiana. Our firefighters protect residential neighborhoods, commercial developments, industrial facilities, major transportation corridors, and Portage’s Lake Michigan shoreline.
Operating from three fire stations, our 65 career firefighters provide fire suppression, rescue, advanced life support, water rescue, hazardous-materials response, and other specialized services. Every shift brings different challenges—and opportunities to make a meaningful difference.
If you want more than simply a place to work, Portage offers the training, technology, compensation, and career opportunities to build a future in the fire service. Learn more about our department.
Practice Advanced EMS at a High Level
Emergency medical services are a major part of our mission. Portage firefighters are expected to become paramedics because we want advanced care available throughout the community—not only when an ambulance happens to arrive first.
Our firefighter-paramedics work with modern EMS equipment, including:
- Stryker power cots and cot-loading systems
- LIFEPAK 35 cardiac monitors with 15-lead ECG capability
- OneScope video intubation cameras
- Pneuton transport ventilators with CPAP
- Advanced airway, cardiac, trauma, and medication-delivery equipment
Portage Fire operates under progressive Northwest Health EMS protocols that allow our paramedics to manage high-acuity patients aggressively in the prehospital environment. These protocols include advanced procedures such as Delayed Sequence Intubation, providing appropriately trained paramedics with additional options for managing difficult airways and critically ill patients.
Here, paramedics are expected to assess, think, and make clinical decisions—not simply transport patients.
We Invest in Your Paramedic Education
You do not have to arrive as a paramedic to build a successful career at Portage Fire.
Firefighters hired with an EMT certification are sent to paramedic school, with tuition paid by the department. Employees are paid to attend class, receive the entire shift off when class falls on a scheduled workday, and are compensated at the overtime rate for qualifying off-duty clinical hours.
Newly hired firefighters must begin paramedic school within their first 24 months of employment. The department also provides continuing EMS education throughout your career, supported by experienced instructors and preceptors. See why Portage requires paramedic certification.
Start With a Strong Fire-Service Foundation
New employees attend the 11-week District 1 Career Fire Academy—even when they already possess firefighter certifications. The academy provides standardized training, reinforces safe operating practices, and helps every recruit begin their Portage career with the same foundation.
Academy training includes:
- Firefighter I and II
- Hazardous Materials Awareness
- Rescue Awareness
- Structural firefighting
- SCBA operations
- Search and rescue
- Ladders and ventilation
- Building construction
- Fireground strategy and tactics
- Hands-on drills and realistic scenarios
The academy is paid, and the City covers eligible tuition, meals, lodging, and travel expenses. Explore our 11-week fire academy.
Training Continues Throughout Your Career
Joining Portage Fire is the beginning of your education—not the end.
The department maintains instructors across firefighting, rescue, and EMS disciplines. Crews participate in regular on-duty training, continuing education, hands-on scenarios, and certification programs. Members also pursue specialized education throughout Indiana and across the country.
Whether you want to become a stronger paramedic, apparatus engineer, instructor, company officer, rescue specialist, or department leader, you will have opportunities to continue developing. Learn about training and continuing education.
Choose a Specialty
Portage Fire provides opportunities to serve beyond your regular apparatus assignment. Depending on qualifications and openings, members may pursue positions involving:
- Water rescue and recovery diving
- Tactical EMS
- Fire investigation
- Hazardous materials response
- Technical rescue
- Honor Guard
- MSA equipment support
- Instruction and paramedic precepting
- Acting engineer and acting officer assignments
Qualified specialty-team members receive additional annual compensation. These assignments allow firefighters to develop advanced capabilities while helping protect Portage and surrounding Northwest Indiana communities. Explore our specialty teams.
Build a Path to Leadership
Portage Fire has a structured career-advancement process that allows motivated employees to prepare for greater responsibility.
Firefighters may enter the Acting Engineer program, complete classroom and mentored apparatus-operations training, and become eligible for engineer assignments. Members who obtain Fire Officer I certification may pursue the Acting Officer program and prepare for future promotional opportunities.
Merited promotional ranks include:
- Engineer
- Lieutenant
- Captain
Promotions are overseen by the Portage Fire Merit Board through a process that considers testing, interviews, education, training, experience, and demonstrated qualifications. Review our career-advancement program.
Competitive Compensation and Exceptional Benefits
Portage provides a compensation package designed to support firefighters throughout their careers and into retirement.
2026 base salaries
- Private EMT starting salary: $69,294.37
- Paramedic: $74,667.45
- Master Firefighter/EMT: $74,093.24
- Master Firefighter/Paramedic: $78,813.76
- Engineer: $78,813.76
- Lieutenant: $80,913.75
- Captain: $82,207.97
These figures are base wages before longevity, holiday compensation, overtime, Kelly pay, specialty-team pay, and other applicable compensation.
Additional benefits include:
- Family health insurance for a $1 annual employee premium
- Indiana 1977 Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Pension and Disability Fund
- Longevity pay
- Time-and-a-half overtime
- Holiday compensation at 2.5 times the regular rate
- Paid Kelly time
- Specialty-team compensation
- Vacation, personal days, and accumulating sick leave
- Major medical leave
- Duty-related injury protection
- Maternity and paternity leave
- Annual clothing allowance
- City-provided uniforms and personal protective equipment
- Retiree health-insurance support after 20 years
- Shift-trading opportunities
The department’s 2026 pension base is $81,966.31, meaning retirement benefits are calculated using the pension base rather than an employee’s starting salary. View the complete 2026 salary and benefits package.
A Department That Protects Its Firefighters
A successful fire-service career requires more than equipment and training. It also requires a department that recognizes the physical and mental demands placed on its members.
Portage firefighters receive:
- A fully paid annual Level III firefighter physical
- One hour of on-duty physical fitness time
- Nonpunitive annual fitness assessments
- Occupational immunizations and health screenings
- Critical-incident support
- Peer and professional mental-health resources
- Mentorship for new employees
- Legal and contractual workplace protections
Our goal is not simply to prepare firefighters for the next call. It is to help them build healthy, sustainable careers.
A Schedule That Gives You Time Away From Work
Portage firefighters currently work a 24-hours-on, 48-hours-off rotation. Shifts begin at 8:00 a.m., with three turns rotating through a 27-day Kelly period.
The schedule provides extended periods away from the station for family, education, outside interests, and recovery while maintaining consistent emergency coverage for the community. See how the Portage Fire schedule works.
What You Need to Get Started
To apply, candidates must initially have:
- A high school diploma or GED
- A valid driver’s license
Before receiving an employment offer, candidates must also meet requirements involving Indiana EMT certification, CPAT completion, age eligibility, background screening, and medical and psychological evaluations.
The hiring process includes:
- Online application
- Online written examination
- Ladder-climb test
- Swim test
- Candidate Physical Ability Test
- Merit Board interview
Applications are accepted throughout the year, and the next hiring-list cycle is scheduled for September 2026. Review the complete hiring process.
Bring Your Experience—or Begin Your Career Here
Whether you are an experienced firefighter-paramedic, an EMT ready to advance, a military veteran transitioning into public safety, or someone beginning a new career, Portage Fire offers a place to learn, serve, and grow.
You will work with modern equipment, practice progressive medicine, receive ongoing training, and have a defined path toward specialty assignments and leadership. Most importantly, you will join a department committed to its members and the community they protect.
Are You Ready to Wear the Portage Patch?
Your fire-service career can begin with one application.
Serve with skill. Grow with purpose. Protect with pride.
Apply to the Portage Fire Department
Be a Part of Something Bigger
Joining the Portage Fire Department is not just about starting a job; it’s about being part of a legacy. It’s about being part of a family that values transparency, commitment, and the well-being of its members.
If you’re ready to take on a challenging yet rewarding career, where you can make a real difference in your community, the Portage Fire Department awaits you.
Become a hero. Serve with PRIDE. Join Portage Fire Department.