The Boise Fire Department says it will be immediately hiring because of the “abnormal amount of retirements.”

BFD will be hiring about 18 firefighters in all.

The names will be selected from the current list of firefighters that were obtained during the 2019 spring interview process. They will be hired in March of 2020.

BFD also said it will begin a new recruitment process in the late summer/early fall of 2020 with an anticipated hire date of January or February of 2021.

Currently, the BFD has 288 full-time employees, and serves a population of 218,000 residents in 130+ square miles.