AMHERST — Whenever an emergency call is placed, the person facing a crisis places their confidence in that whoever arrives will be a trained professional — capable, skilled and courageous. The image of a firefighter — tough, strong, and always willing to put themselves on the line — is a common ideal in the public’s consciousness. In Amherst, these firefighters may even be local full-time college students.

Engine Company 3, housed at the North Fire Station in Amherst on East Pleasant Street, is entirely staffed by a group of about three dozen volunteer student firefighters, nearly all from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a handful from Hampshire and Amherst colleges. Just like their career counterparts, who are paid and employed by the town of Amherst, these firefighters have their own command, training, fire engine and — crucially — they respond to nearly all the same types of emergencies.

“The student force has been part of our department for 70 years,” said Lindsay Stromgren, chief of the Amherst Fire Department. “On a daily basis, they’re contributing to our bottom line in terms of helping provide service not only to the university, but to the entire town at large.”

For Dylan Dincer, an electrical engineering senior at UMass who also leads student force, there is nothing quite like being out in the field responding to fires and getting ready for the next emergency. “It’s really hard to explain,” Dincer said. “It really is the greatest job in the world.”

The student force operates a six-person crew that works a 12-hour shift on most weeknights running from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. On weekends, the hours double to a full 24-hour shift that rotates staff depending on the week. Each semester, Engine 3 responds to up to 200 calls, with a range of anywhere from zero calls in one shift to as many as five or six on particularly busy nights. The only times the student force does not operate is on most Mondays and Tuesdays, as well as during school holidays and breaks, Dincer said.

The calls they answer can range from a motor vehicle accident with injuries to a house fire with entrapped people, to simply a few students who had too much to drink. Fire calls, such as for the brush fire Engine 3 responded to that burned through Orchard Hill this past November, bring the most alarm.

Dincer, who has been on the force since his sophomore year, recalled one incident in which he witnessed an automobile engulfed in flames. “I didn’t really know how high the flames would be from a car on fire,” Dincer said. “They were probably like 6 or 7 feet high. … I couldn’t believe it.”

Other times, the nights are not quite as action-packed, with the majority of calls being false alarms and canceled calls. Generally, the student force arrives at calls alongside a career-staffed engine, but on busy nights it often responds on its own, Dincer said.

“Everybody in the department is important,” said Stromgren. “Whether you are a full-time firefighter or a student firefighter, you don’t know what you’re going into next on a call. The students have to be as ready for a call as the full-time people.”

To meet that expectation, student firefighters train to be ready at a moment’s notice for any emergency. Upon recruitment, which typically takes place at the start of the spring and fall semesters, students go through a hiring process including a physical and tests. Upon successful completion, they get thrust into training, learning the firefighting craft on training nights every Thursday and during hourly sessions held throughout each shift.

All firefighters eventually attend a six-day training program in the summer referred to as “Wonder Week,” which is held at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy in Springfield. There, students learn the basics and mechanics of fire, as well as duties such as opening and closing fire hydrants, turning on pumps and equipment, and preparing breathing apparatuses.

Working fast and accurately is held as the most important aspect above all, so time trials and repeated drills are employed to mitigate delays that could manifest in a real fire. The training days run from dawn to dusk. “I never thought it was going to be so complicated and complex,” said Andy Solis Bustos, an accounting major who just officially started with the force. “You wake up early in the morning at 5 and just do all the stuff that you need to do.”

Besides all the training, work hours and paperwork, managing time between the job of a first responder and the life of the student brings its own challenges. Some days, firefighters hardly get an hour of sleep before having to rush down the poles and into their turnout gear, only to find that by the time this call is resolved, they have a test looming over their heads in a couple of hours.

Other times, they have to cut out weekend plans, or cram every minute of their time between calls to studying and homework.

“I’ll tell you one thing, it’s hard,” Solis Bustos said. “I work four days a week. … I like to have my schedule busy instead of having no plan, but … you gotta be quite mature in terms of sacrificing things you used to do.” At the same time, however, some student fighters feel that their parallel experience of saving lives and studying gives them an experience that few other students can claim.

“You’re sitting in class and your phone goes off,” said Trevor Tsang, a captain on the force and senior geography major. “Not even 15 minutes ago I was sitting in class, next I’m driving a firetruck to an active fire. What kind of student can say that kind of thing? … It feels like a second life.”

Students on the force hail from all sorts of walks of life, said Dincer, ranging from local commuters to out-of-staters living in dorms. The vast majority of students joined the force without experience or knowledge of firefighting and emergency services, but rather with the willingness to learn and to serve their newfound home.

Many students find themselves drawn to the department early in their collegiate careers, when by sheer happenstance they spot a fire engine on the campus center and a recruiting squad eager to give them a pitch. The main thing they look for in recruits? A will.

“The most important thing is the desire and the drive,” Dincer said. “You may or may not have fire experience. The majority of people we get don’t have fire experience. So, we expect to be training people — but what we can’t train people to have is a drive and a desire and a will to do this.”

Universally, students express that they love the job not just for the ability to serve the community and save lives, but many prize the camaraderie and sense of community that the fire service provides. As firefighters eat, sleep and work through thick and thin together, they are in far greater proximity than average roommates.

“You really get to trust people when you eat meals with them, sleep in the same room as them, when you’re on the truck with them at 3 in the morning when you get woken up to go someplace. … You gain an appreciation for the people you work with,” Dincer said.

While some students end up making their time at the Fire Department only last through their undergrad work, others decide to make it their life’s career, with a number of student firefighters becoming full-time members of the Amherst Fire Department upon graduation. Stromgren himself, who just assumed the chief position on Dec. 2, started as a student firefighter with the department during his time at UMass over 40 years ago.

The fact that the student program helps bolster recruitment into the department is a major plus of the student force, Stromgren said. Of the 47 full-time firefighters in the department, nine members originally started as students, which helps contribute to “virtually all” firefighters in the department holding at least a bachelor’s degree, said Stromgren.

Sometimes, students who end up pursuing firefighting as a career do so without the faintest thought of it ever occurring before joining the force, and Dincer — who once focused on a career in electrical engineering — now intends to enter the force upon graduation. “I really fell in love with this,” Dincer said. “I want to see out my degree, because that’s probably the wise thing to do, but I really want to go into the fire service.”

For this academic year, though, Dincer is set to lead his fellow students as a real engine company. “We get people who refer to this as a club, and it’s very important for me to set the record straight: We are not a club,” Dincer said. “We are an arm of the town’s government, we are really a fire engine, and we can be called upon to do anything the Fire Department could be called upon to do. We will be sent there.”

Anthony Buscarino is a junior journalism major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.