Flames curled around a white 1997 Buick as the airbags exploded, sounding like gunshots. The tires popped next, sending metal pieces flying. Four men battled the blaze, shooting water through a firehose while Captain Michael Chapman looked on.

By the end of the day, he said, this training academy of the Los Angeles County Fire Department will torch 10 cars.

Not only is the training free for these firefighters-in-training — they also get paid. They’re in an apprenticeship program, which means they learn on the job.

It’s a model that’s gaining new attention. During his 2018 campaign, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would create 500,000 new apprenticeships in the decade after taking office. Firefighting is the most popular so far, with nearly 18,000 apprentices joining programs since Newsom’s inauguration in January 2019, according to Adele Burnes, the deputy chief of the state’s Division of Apprenticeship Standards. As of this month, she said the state has registered more than 180,000 apprentices across all industries in the last five years.

The California Firefighter Joint Apprenticeship Committee helps create these firefighter apprenticeships by bringing together local fire departments and their union leaders, who jointly set the terms for apprentice pay and training. The state subsidizes apprenticeship training just like it subsidizes public colleges and universities.

Learning without getting burned

Today, the majority of professional firefighters in California are trained through apprenticeship programs, said Yvonne de la Peña, who oversees the joint committee. She said getting to that point took more than 30 years of incremental work, negotiating apprenticeship agreements department by department.

The 36 Los Angeles County apprentices all men, each with the same buzz cut. After every lesson in their 18-week training program, they split into small groups and line up in rows, where their instructors shout commands.

“We have to be militaristic,” Chapman said. “Someone has to take charge.”

The pay varies, but in large fire departments, apprentices can make more than $40 an hour, according to de la Peña. Once they finish apprenticeship training, they get a raise.

First: A car burns during firefighter training. Last: An apprentice carries a saw. Photos by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

Apprentices work to extinguish the flames on a burning car. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

The state reimburses the departments for some training costs, typically about $10 an hour for each hour of training. In the 2022-23 budget year, which ended last June, the state gave fire departments a total of more than $24 million for apprenticeship training, according to Melissa Villarin, a spokesperson for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. The money passes through education agencies because it comes from Proposition 98, the same source used to fund K-12 education and community colleges.

In addition to its hourly reimbursement, which is provided to almost any registered apprenticeship program, California allocated around $130 million for apprenticeships in the last budget year. Most of that money went to programs that help diversify apprenticeships or to industries that are interested in launching an apprenticeship model for the first time. It’s part of an unprecedented state investment in apprenticeships in recent years.

In Los Angeles County, the fire department didn’t qualify for many of those grants, but it received over $4 million from the state for training reimbursement.

A few hours after quenching the car fire, the apprentices rotate to other lessons, including the most dangerous one: a burning building. For that section, instructors outnumber students. “The last thing we want is to burn one of them,” said Chapman, pointing to the apprentices. “Or burn one of the staff.”

To simulate a burning building, the instructors use shipping containers, lining sections of the interior walls with wooden pallets and sound boards, then lighting them on fire. Four apprentices run from a fire truck in the parking lot toward the shipping containers, carrying a firehouse between them, and crawl inside, one-by-one, escorted by their instructors at the front and the rear of the line.

At one point while inside, the firehose snags a corner, but the apprentices struggle to communicate with one another to ask for more slack.

First and last: Apprentices, in yellow helmets, run a hose over to the entrance of a shipping container during training. Photos by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

Several instructors take off their gear and cool off between training sessions. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

They lose about 30 seconds but put out the fire nonetheless. They exit the shipping container slowly, too exhausted to run, then they strip off their uniforms and dunk their heads into a trash bin filled with ice water. Both apprentices and instructors are dripping in water and sweat as they sit down to debrief the lesson.

“Did they not hear you or did you not understand?” said instructor Zack Balderrama, referring to the moment when the firehose got stuck.

“Both,” said a group of four apprentices, in unison.

‘Parallels’ to education

On-the-job training has long been a part of firefighting, said de la Peña, with the joint apprenticeship committee. “The apprenticeship model hasn’t changed how someone becomes a firefighter.” The difference, she said, is that now fire departments are reimbursed directly by the state for some of their training costs. Their training is more standardized and union leaders play a larger part in determining it, she said.

Some industries, such as carpentry, have also created robust apprenticeship programs. Since 2019, the state has registered roughly 14,000 carpenter apprentices, said Burnes, with the state standards division.

Industries such as firefighting and carpentry will continue to add apprentices, but not at the scale needed to meet the governor’s goal of 500,000. “If we do nothing and maintain the status quo, we will serve approximately 330,000 apprentices by 2029,” wrote state agency leaders in a 2022 report. One of the solutions, they wrote, is to “expand new and innovative apprenticeships,” in fields such as education, health care, and technology.

Teachers and firefighters have few skills in common, but when it comes to forming apprenticeship programs, Burnes said there are “parallels.” Both industries are primarily composed of unionized, public sector employees who are spread out across hundreds of independently governed districts.

Apprentices turn to walk to their next lesson. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

California — population 39 million — currently has two teacher apprentices, according to the organization, and they’re registered with the federal government, not the state. California has yet to certify an apprenticeship program for K-12 teachers, Burnes said. “There’s a whole system of teacher credentialing in California. That’s a different nut to crack.” The goal, she said, is to create a pathway for students to earn while they learn, without diminishing the quality of the state’s teaching credentials.

In health care, Burnes pointed to one promising program, which trains licensed vocational nurses to become registered nurses. She said it has enrolled 84 apprentices since 2016.

Making room for women in firefighting

To train in Los Angeles County, the 36 apprentices needed to pass physical agility, medical and written tests, and to be certified Emergency Medical Technicians or paramedics before starting training. Many took over 20 different written exams, in multiple counties and states, waiting years just to get hired with a department. This particular class of apprentices took its written exam in 2019.

The greatest challenge is often physical. During training, apprentices must prove they can carry ladders, chainsaws, and hoses while wearing heavy uniforms, helmets, and oxygen tanks — in over 100° heat.

Initially, the fire department accepted 56 people, but in the first few weeks of class, 20 apprentices either got injured or failed to meet the performance requirements. Among those who failed was the sole woman.

“Everybody is held to the same standard,” said Chapman, adding that both men and women struggle with the physical agility exam and apprenticeship training. “Size or gender has nothing to do with it.”

While the governor’s goal focuses on the volume of apprentices in California, state agencies and fire departments are also concerned about diversity. Apprenticeships help train people for high-paying jobs, but historically, the industries that offer apprenticeships have been male-dominated. In firefighting and construction, for example, just 4% of apprentices are women, according to the state’s 2022 report.

Diversifying those industries and creating new apprenticeship programs in female-dominated industries, such as education, can help close the pay gap between men and women, Burnes said.

Through a 2017 bill, the state Legislature required the California Firefighter Joint Apprenticeship Committee to create programs that prepare applicants, especially women and people of color, for firefighter jobs. Last year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors called on its fire department to do the same.

Today, de la Peña said the joint committee offers classes in San Diego, Sacramento, and Los Angeles, where students can get certified as a paramedic and practice for the other components of the firefighter apprenticeship.

Apprentices’ gear and a helmet are laid out on a bench. Photos by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

For Michaela Levell, a student in Los Angeles, the greatest benefit is the cost. “It’s free,” she said, referring to her paramedic class, and she’s able to continue working as an EMT since school is only three days a week. The UCLA paramedic program nearby is four days a week and costs about $13,0000.

Growing up in Indiana, Levell said she didn’t see any other women in the fire service so she decided to go to college and study social work instead. “It’s a daunting thing to know how few females there are in the fire department,” she said.

After getting her bachelor’s degree, she has around $50,000 of debt and said she wishes she had pursued a firefighter apprenticeship earlier. Once she moved to Los Angeles, she came across female firefighters through her EMT work. She said they’re some of “the most badass women I’ve ever met.”

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Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.

Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt and Irvine foundations.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.