Track 2 · Make Captain
Earn the
Bugles.
Lieutenant or Captain. Tactical IC sims, in-basket, oral panels, counseling drills, written prep. The full assessment-center battery, AI-graded, NFPA 1021 anchored. Built by a captain.
$59.99/mo or $209.99 for a 120-day promotion cycle.
New to the captain promotion process? Read the complete How to Become a Fire Captain guide first — every assessment-center station explained, what panels look for, and how to prepare.
The Honest Read
Captain's Exam Prep Is Stuck in 2005.
PDFs, $499 memberships, expensive coaches, and live seminars. None of it gets you reps under pressure.
Static PDFs and Workbooks
Every officer prep product ships you 200 pages and tells you to study. None of it makes you talk through a counseling scenario, run an in-basket triage in 30 minutes, or radio a tactical objective with the world watching.
Coaching Doesn't Scale
A retired chief charges $200-$500 per session. You need 30 reps before test day. Math says you can't afford 30 sessions, so you do 4. The other 26 reps don't happen.
No Identity-Blind Score
Live coaching tells you what your coach thinks. The actual panel scores against a rubric and an audit trail. Practice should look like the real test, with a defensible score not a vibe check.
What's Inside
The Full Captain's Battery.
Same exercises departments pay $750-$2,500 per cycle for. Repackaged as unlimited individual practice.
Tactical IC Simulations
Realistic incident commands. You give size-ups, set objectives, assign companies, and call benchmarks. AI scores command presence, tactical accuracy, and protocol fidelity.
In-Basket Exercises
Triage 8-12 simulated administrative tasks under a 30-minute clock. Memo to chief, employee complaint, training assignment, equipment request. Ranked by urgency, judgment, and clarity.
Oral Panel Interviews
100+ captain-tier prompts across personnel, tactical, administrative, community, and leadership dimensions. AI scores all five dimensions per response.
Employee Counseling Role-Play
Simulated conversations with a difficult subordinate. Performance issue, attendance problem, conflict between members. Scored on tone, structure, and progressive discipline.
Writing Exercises
Memo, incident report, policy summary, after-action narrative. Scored on clarity, structure, and accuracy. Built to look like the writing prompts that show up on assessment center day.
Written Test Prep
NFPA 1021 (Fire Officer I/II), IFSTA Company Officer, Fire Engineering reference set. Knowledge Drill and Exam Prep tools, plus the full 23,000+ question bank.
Free Sample · No Card
Try a Free Captain In-Basket
Six items, 45-min clock. AI scores Prioritization, Judgment, Completeness, Rank Awareness, Writing Discipline. One free attempt per email.
Try It FreeFree Sample · No Card
Try a Free Tactical IC Sim
Multi-stage scenario with mid-incident injects (Mayday, fire extension, command transfer). AI scores tactical accuracy + adaptability.
Try It FreeBring Your Own Material
Upload SOGs or Your Own Study Notes
Have your dept's SOGs / SOPs? Your own typed study notes? An NFPA standard excerpt? Paste it into the SOG Assistant and the AI generates a quiz from it. Open to individual candidates and dept training officers — same flow either way. We don't ingest copyrighted publisher textbooks (IFSTA, Brunacini, Klaene, etc.) — that's a publisher-licensing issue.
Open the SOG AssistantThe Honest Comparison
How StruckBox Compares.
| Capability | StruckBox | Aspiring Fire Officers | FAC Prep | FiredUp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI-graded oral reps | ||||
| AI-graded in-basket | ||||
| AI-graded counseling roleplay | ||||
| AI-graded writing exercise | ||||
| Tactical IC simulations | ||||
| Identity-blind scoring | ||||
| NFPA 1021 anchored | ||||
| Written test prep | partial | partial | ||
| Self-serve, instant access | partial | |||
| Starting price | $59.99/mo | $99-$499 | $199-$925 | $49/mo |
Comparison based on publicly available product information as of April 2026. Aspiring Fire Officers, Fire Assessment Center Prep, and FiredUp are trademarks of their respective owners.
Pricing
Less Than One Coaching Session per Month.
Daily Reps base + Captain track. Or pay once for a full 120-day promotional cycle.
Best Value
Promotion Cycle
Daily Reps + Captain through test day
$209.99/120 days
One time, no auto-renew
Start Cycle7-day free trial on monthly. Cancel anytime. Full pricing.
From the Founder
Captain Brian Williams
Captain & Paramedic, KCKFD. 25 years on the job.
The kitchen-table conversations I valued most across 25 years on the job never made it into a digital format. Promotional prep is one of the parts of fire service training that especially needs reps under pressure.
The Captain track packages the assessment center exercises — tactical IC, in-basket, oral panels, counseling roleplay, writing — as unlimited individual practice. Identity-blind AI scoring, NFPA 1021 anchored. Practice that looks like the real test.
Common Questions
What Captain Candidates Ask.
Is this a full assessment center or just oral prep?
Full assessment center. The Captain track unlocks the same exercise battery used in real promotional cycles: tactical IC simulations, in-basket exercises, oral panel interviews, employee counseling role-plays, and writing exercises. Lieutenant and Captain content both surface, anchored to NFPA 1021 Fire Officer I and II. Identity-blind AI scoring with a hash-chained audit trail. The same product departments pay $750-$2,500 per cycle for, repackaged as individual practice mode.
Does this cover Lieutenant promotion too?
Yes. The Captain track covers both Lieutenant (FO-I) and Captain (FO-II). All five engines (tactical IC, in-basket, oral, counseling, writing) surface both Lieutenant- and Captain-tier content side by side, so candidates testing for either rank work from the same library. Pick your specific target rank in profile and the difficulty mix adjusts.
How does this compare to Aspiring Fire Officers or Fire Assessment Center Prep?
Those are excellent businesses with deep written content and live coaching. They charge $99-$499 for membership tiers and don't include AI scoring. StruckBox is built for unlimited reps with AI feedback. Different tools, different jobs. If you're spending $499 for a 6-month membership somewhere else, $59.99/month here gets you the AI rep volume those products don't have. Many candidates use both.
Can I upload SOGs or my own study notes to generate quizzes?
Yes. Paste any text you have rights to use — your dept's SOGs/SOPs, your own typed study notes, NFPA standard excerpts — into /tools/sog-assistant and the AI generates a quiz from it. Works the same for individuals and dept training officers. What we can't ingest: copyrighted publisher textbooks (IFSTA, Brunacini, Klaene, etc.) — that's a publisher-licensing issue. The platform is NFPA 1021 anchored across the broader question bank, so the standards-side coverage is built in either way.
What does Make Captain cost?
$59.99/month for the Captain plan, or $209.99 for a 120-day promotion cycle. Both include the full Daily Reps content (6 training tools, daily drills, exam bank). The cycle pricing is the better deal for most candidates. No credit card to start.
What about written test prep?
Included. The Knowledge Drill and Exam Prep tools cover NFPA 1021 (Fire Officer I/II) topics, IFSTA Company Officer, Fire Engineering's reference set, and most popular promotional textbooks. Track your weak areas and the platform serves more from those topics.
I already passed the written. I just need oral and assessment center prep.
Then start with the assessment center battery and skip the written prep. The platform tracks what you've completed and what you've skipped. You can also use the cycle ($209.99 for 120 days) and pace yourself however the test window demands.
How identity-blind is the AI scoring?
Audio responses are processed without any name, rank, or department metadata attached to the scoring pipeline. Scores are returned with a hash-chained audit log so you can prove (to yourself, a chief, or a mentor) that the score is reproducible.
Train for Test Day Like It's Test Day.
Free trial. Run your first tactical IC sim tonight.
Train for the Badge$59.99/mo or $209.99 for a 120-day cycle.
Built by a Captain & Paramedic. NFPA 1021 anchored.