| The Sims 3 Ambitions | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Professions | Bake Sales | Consignment Shop | Simbot | Inventing | Sculpting | |
The Sims 3 Firefighter
Tips for Firefighting in the Ambitions Profession
By Diane Green and Carl Ratcliff
Firefighting is a profession that came with the Ambitions expansion for the Sims 3. In this guide, we'll learn about the Firefighter profession and how to rise in the ranks quickly.
Good Traits for Firefighters
First, the obvious: Handy and Athletic. These two are combined into a single job performance metric, and raising them faster can lead to earlier promotions. Next, the less obvious. Daredevil and Brave. Brave Sims have a natural inclination to extinguish fires, and under free will may spot and put out those that you have trouble finding. Daredevils also seem to put them out faster. The fifth recommended trait is either Friendly or Charismatic. You'll be spending a lot of time at the fire house and this will give you the opportunity to more easily fulfill the second of the three performance metrics, befriend coworkers. The last metric is aided by athletic and handiness as you must put out fires to advance.
Getting Started in the Career
Join the Firefighter career by clicking on the fire house in map view. While you can also join from the newspaper or computer, this is the best and most direct route. At the beginning, your firefighter's hours are 9am
to 5pm, Monday through Friday and the car pool
will come to get your firefighter and take them to work. Hours change
as your Sim progresses in the firefighting career. The first thing you
need to do is read up on handiness and work out
on the treadmill or weight machine to raise the athletic skill. You need to
be able to upgrade the fire engine and fire alarm with handiness,
and athletic comes in handy when you need to
take an axe to rescue someone.
During work hours, your Sim can maintain the fire truck, socialize with other firefighters, play video games and basically can live at the fire house. In all, you'll need to be at the fire house during work hours to stay prepared to go on the job at a moment's notice. There are plenty of opportunities to raise your career performance at the fire house even when not on call, saving you money on exercise equipment.
You will receive a weekly stipend every Sunday at noon. Each time you finish a call you will get a bonus that is the same amount of your weekly salary, when your salary goes up, your bonus will go up also. The Profession Simoleon Booster Lifetime Reward will increase your pay rate.
| Job Title | Stipend | Hours* | Rewards |
| Water Boy/Girl | $276 | 9AM to 5PM | Firefighter Social |
| Soot Stripper | $340 | 9AM to 5PM | |
| Fire Safety Instructor | $400 | 9AM to 5PM | |
| Hose Handler | $520 | 9AM to 5PM | Fireman Axe Wall Decor |
| Fireman | $640 | 10AM to 6PM | Upgrade Personal Extinguisher |
| Fire Sergeant | $840 | 10AM to 6PM | Fireman Uniform Wall Sculpture |
| Fire Captain | $1132 | 11AM to 5PM | |
| Backdraft Specialist | $1480 | 11AM to 5PM | |
| Assistant Fire Chief | $1840 | 12PM to 5PM | Immune to Fire |
| Fire Chief | $2480 | 12PM to 5PM | Personal Fire Engine/Wall Alarm |
* All work days are Monday through Friday.
Throughout your tenure as a Firefighter, you will put out small house fires, large house fires, and find angry gnomes.
There are also different emergencies that spawn different rewards. The Gnome Invasion will get you a Firefighter's Trophy of Valor. The Racetime Rift emergency event that is at the Science Facility will get you a Firefighter's Trophy of Heroism.
When you are at the fire house and the alarm goes off, there is a buzz of activity of other firefighters on the phone, looking at maps and some look like they are in a state of panic. Your Sim will be the only one that goes on these calls and he has a lot of responsibility to put out these fires. This is one of the rabbit hole emergencies that you cannot follow your sim into.
There is also one at the hospital, criminal warehouse, day spa and theater. There may be others that my firefighter did not encounter as of yet.
You will also get graded on the amount of time it takes to put out the fire. If the fire is further out of town and your fire truck is not maintained, it will be very slow to respond and could end up giving you a lower score. Upgrading the horsepower with the handiness skill will help improve response time. Here's a breakdown of scores:
A - 3 hoursB - 4 hours
C - 6 hours
D - 7 hours
F - Missing work before a job is complete.
A tip that is worth mentioning that has been proven by myself and a few others is do not attempt to get maxed handiness or athletic skill before you start this profession. You will reach level 10 very quickly. In fact almost in one weekend if you read the handy book and use exercise equipment. Space out your skill points and alternate with upkeep on your firestation equipment. As you hone in on your skills, the progression bar in the career tab will turn green as you progress.
After your firefighter has reached level 10, he can continue working from home with his new fire truck and alarm and go on calls from there. You need to have plenty of room for your new fire truck, as it takes the long parking place in buy mode.
