California Swing

What the California Swing is

A platoon works one twenty-four hour tour, takes three days off, works two tours back to back, then takes three days off again. Nine days from start to repeat.

It is written 1-3-2-3, and it covers a station with three platoons on the same total hours as a Kelly — the difference is how the tours are grouped.

Where the Kelly spreads three single tours across the cycle, the Swing pairs two of them and buys two separate three-day breaks.

How the cycle runs

One nine-day cycle for a single platoon:

Print this rotation (PDF) One page — the cycle above, and a blank grid for your own dates.

Swing against Kelly

Same hours, same nine days, different rhythm. The Kelly gives one four-day break at the end; the Swing gives two three-day breaks spread through the cycle.

Which is better is genuinely a matter of preference, and crews argue about it. Two shorter breaks suit people with regular commitments; one long break suits people who travel or work a second job.

The forty-eight hour block is the Swing's cost. Two tours back to back is a long time in the station, and a busy pair can leave you flat.

Related patterns

The Modified Detroit works the same way with different grouping, and departments run local variants under their own names — the arithmetic barely changes, but the rhythm does.

If your station runs one of those, it is a custom rotation rather than a named one, which is exactly what a saved template is for.

Who works it

Twenty-four hour tours across three platoons:

• Fire departments, especially in the west
• EMS and ambulance services
• Airport rescue and firefighting
• Industrial fire brigades
• Hazmat teams
• Some corrections and remote posts

The trade-off

Put it on your calendar

Twenty-four hour tours on a nine-day cycle, with the Kelly day that keeps the average honest.

Save it once and the cycle runs itself, with the day off in the right place every time round.

What Canadian law does to this rotation

The cycle is the same shape in both countries. What sits underneath it is not, and in Canada it is provincial rather than federal — so the same rotation can be worked and paid differently depending on where you are.

The daily ceiling follows your shift, not the statute. Ontario's Employment Standards Act caps the working day at eight hours or the number of hours in an established regular workday, if it is longer than eight. On a 24-hour rotation that established day is 24-hour, so the ceiling is 24-hour — the rotation itself sets it. Going past that needs a written agreement, and no agreement lets anyone be required past 60 hours in a week.

Eleven hours off between shifts is the ESA minimum, and a 24-hour tour has to be built around it rather than through it. Healthcare and emergency work can override that rest in a genuine emergency, but the time off has to be given back afterwards — it is substituted, not cancelled.

The weekly rest rule is the one long runs meet. The ESA requires at least 24 consecutive hours off in each work week, or 48 consecutive hours off in every period of two consecutive work weeks. This cycle runs 2 shifts back to back, so it is the two-week version that has to carry it.

Overtime is triggered differently by province, and this rotation averages 56 hours. The weekly threshold runs from 40 hours in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, the territories and federally, through 44 in Ontario and New Brunswick, to 48 in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Ontario and Quebec have no daily trigger at all; British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the territories have both, so exceeding 8 hours in a day counts even if the week does not. BC adds double time past 12 hours in a day. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador calculate overtime at 1.5 times the minimum wage rather than your own rate. Same roster, a different answer in almost every jurisdiction.

And one Quebec rule that catches shift workers out: premiums added to the hourly rate, such as night or evening shift premiums, are not taken into account when calculating overtime. Your overtime is worked out on the base rate, so a night premium does not carry into it.

Averaging is what makes a cycle like this work on paper. Where the pattern does not fit a calendar week, hours can be averaged over two to four weeks for the purpose of overtime, by written agreement. If you are in a union, your union can make that agreement with your employer — and in a policing or fire service it usually has, which is why your collective agreement rather than the statute is the document that decides your pay.

Two employers sit outside all of that. The RCMP works under one national agreement with the Treasury Board rather than provincial standards — its default workweek is forty hours from Monday to Friday with a workday of a minimum of eight consecutive hours, and separate articles for variable and shift work that take a detachment off that default. Federal enforcement uses a Variable Shift Schedule Arrangement, negotiated branch by branch, so two workplaces under one contract can run different rosters. In both cases the agreement is the whole answer and the province you live in does not enter into it.

Checked 7 August 2026. Provincial rules are quoted from the Employment Standards Act of the province named and, for Quebec, from the CNESST; federal provisions from the Treasury Board agreements. Employment standards are amended and collective agreements are renegotiated — check the current text before relying on a threshold or a figure.

Common questions

What is the California Swing schedule?

A 1-3-2-3 fire rotation: one twenty-four hour tour, three days off, two tours back to back, three days off. Nine days in all.

How is it different from the Kelly schedule?

Same nine days and the same fifty-six hour average. The Kelly gives one four-day break; the Swing gives two three-day breaks and asks for one forty-eight hour block.

What is the Modified Detroit?

Another twenty-four hour pattern that groups tours differently. The hours land in much the same place; the rhythm does not.