The better question is how long does it take for the fire to be put out...let me take a stab at that.

-The department is 3 miles away.
-Its presumably late at night so there will be little traffic.
-The speed limit around your house is 30 mph.
-The average "out the door time" is 45 seconds.
-Fire grows 10 times in size a minute.

So the truck arrives in 2.5 minutes roughly. They hook up to the hydrant and lay attack hose in 2 minutes. They find the fire in 3 minutes (lets assume its upstairs and everyone is assumed to be out of the house by now, so searching will not be a main priority and slow you down.) The sticks take up about 2 square feet (rough guess) initially. By the time the fire is ready to be put out the fire will be about 140 square feet (once again roughly, my math skills suck.) Flowing 150 gallons per minute (pretty standard amount for a normal attack line) it would take me as nozzle man all of ten seconds to put it out. So a total time of about 7 minutes and 40 seconds to put it out.

I think the putting it out math is way more fun...and its all I know. And I know this contest is for people with 50+ posts but I felt special actually knowing about something so I felt moved to post. Congrats on passing the test, I don't know how engineering tests are but just normal firefighting state tests are absolute bitches...but thankfully I passed mine first try.