Everything OneGuy67 just said is dead on. Education is huge, I recently got passed over by my own department because the outside candidates had more education. Just my $.02.

as far as Fire most of my friends who've gone Fire got their EMT-B, it may not be required by the Department but it's training that does help. So I've heard at least. I did my EMT-B and ended up in LE so I don't know that much about the fire process....

Best of luck