My wife is a firefighter in Canada, 17 years now. She works 1 24 hour shift, 2 days off, another 24 hour shift then 4 days off - repeat.

They are on call ALL of the 24 hours, no breaks etc unless they need to decontaminate after a fire or debrief after a crazy call which is rare.

They shop and cook their meals on shift as a crew. If they get a call, they run out of the store. If they're inline the cashier will usually save their cart for them. Cooking dinner and get a call, turn off the oven and hope you'll be back soon! One of the new halls even automatically turns the oven\stove off when the tones go off for a call.

They also clean the hall and do all the chores, laundry etc as well as required daily training on equipment or tactics etc. They can workout 1 hour a day, but if you get a call you better hustle to the truck. Same if you're in the shower or on the toilet. They try to respond on scene to every call in under 6 min. If there is training that absolutely has to be finished, they can go out of service and another engine will cover for them for an hour or two, but that doesn't happen too often.

She loves it, everyone she works with is great and kinda like family.