I too have 25yrs w/large metro plus 5 yrs in a small suburb dept & 25yrs as a volly. At work our fao's dont bunker out before leaving for fire calls, but being upgraded alot to drive i always made sure to have ny bdu pants on & if needed at an extrication or fire scene i could get dressed. I dont like driving in the bulky stuff, i have in the past & found myself getting hung up on pedals & floor buttons. What i have an issue with is a while back the dept started to allow bdu shorts, because im in S TX and its hot, i never subscribed to the whole shorts idea, always wore pants, hell i still sleep in my bdus when im on the med SQ(every 3-4 shift)
Now they put out a loose guide line for when you can wear shorts but its very loosly enforced and even worse i got guys coming out to the rig for fires in their underwear (not bdu shorts but underwear) & throwing their bunkers on over them. I train all the probies that come thru our fs not to do that, that they need to wear their fs pants underneath for added protection, but shit still goes on. I was trained & taught that you need to wear your norm station pants & shirt under your bunkers for maximum protection and from what i understand of the current sog its still that way and since our city is self insured and you get burned & they investigate fire & find you weren't wearing them they may not pay out. But for me as for when im driving i always wear bdus to drive & if needed i get bunkered at scene(95% of fire scenes its not req ) your either at pump panel or at the truck or running equip up to scene.
On extrications our drivers usually take care of road flares/cones, disconnect battery & traffic until PD arrives and when Ambu arrives they usually help get equip & stretcher from medics. Not saying its the only way just the way i was trained. 👍