VIDEO: The City of Fort Worth's fire department is training its largest-ever recruiting class, in an effort to keep up with the city's population growth.
Chief James Davis said he'd been trying to boost staffing for a couple of years, and the city council granted the budget after recent studies highlighted the need.
“They reflected that we weren’t making good use of our people and that we were becoming dependent upon overtime in order to keep up with the growth," Davis said.
He said Fort Worth is growing at about 20,000 new residents per year.
The budget increase allows for 70 new firefighters.
"This increase in our authorized strength will help us to maintain-- to keep up with that growth and provide that level of service," Davis said.
The current recruitment class, 60 people, is twice the size of the usual academy class.