I have 17 years of firebombing experience, finishing up on the Lockheed Electra. The only airline guys we had worked their way up from bush operations before flying for an airline and kept their hands and feet up to speed flying homebuilts, floatplanes, warbirds etc. A zero straight to shiny jet guy never made it through training in my company, the kind of flying was just too different.
That being said the pure Ag or Beaver on floats guys never made it to the big iron fire bombers and did their whole career on VFR single pilot small tankers. Again the kind of flying was just too different.