Recently completed my refresher course for CAA Cat II Fire and Rescue (only a low Cat for heli's and light a/c)
Dress ready to move at any given time and suit up in cab.
Response time for Cat II is 2 mins,
That is 2 mins from when the big siren goes off to having delivered at least half of the media (eg Foam) onto incident.
By law, we have to have a practice at least once every 3 months and a refresher every 18 months.
Dont know about the big Cat boys ( Response times etc).
Hope this answers part of the question.