Post: #1

Are there any RVFers who are firefighters or considering going into fire?

I'm currently in an office job, but I've thought seriously about fire fighting as a career. I've been volunteering for a few months too and enjoy it.

What do you guys think about fire fighting as a full-time career?

Post: #2

Great career, great benefits for the most part, exciting lifestyle, great hours (24 on, 72 off), ample time to work out and work on side hustles.

It is an great opportunity for a middle class guy. It is not location independent. It will not make you rich (retirement can be nice though). You will simply live a comfortable lifestyle, surrounded by rep pill type personalities (much more so than in office job at least), and have some cool stories to tell.

You day may involve long hours of intense boredom (aka, side project time), but it will also involve moments of intense excitement.

I am not a firefighter. I work in a similar field. I also know many firefighters.

I say go for it.

Post: #3

Thanks, man. Good post.

Quote:It is not location independent.

That's probably the worst aspect of the job. Getting into any individual fire dept is a challenge, so odds are that you're going
to have to move to whatever dept will hire you. Which is inconvenient for sure. I'd like to get hired locally, but the hiring rate
for my local dept is very low.

Quote:It will not make you rich (retirement can be nice though)

Getting rich is pretty hard though. I know lots of guys who work insanely hard at the office or building their own business, while
still remaining middle class. Without lots of luck, it's generally tough to get wealthy in any career path (Other than maybe doctors).

I'm sort of at the point in my life where I've started to realize that a good lifestyle outweighs the benefits
of making more money. Unless you really are making extravagant amounts of money, I feel like job security, reasonable hours,
and enjoyment bring you more happiness than a high pay check. For example, there are a lot of senior level
managers making well over six figures, but there's a lot of stress and unhappiness in those guys too.

Post: #4

I have a good buddy that is a firefighter. He said it was very hard to get on with the department without "knowing someone on the inside".

The upside is that the guy has plenty of time to go to the gym and chase girls. Speaking of girls he pretty much just has to wear a "local firefighter dept X" t-shirt to be opened by girls. He also said that many of the dudes he works with have side gigs on their off time to supplement their income. You also get to retire at 55 with benefits, same as cops.

The downside is that you are more of an EMT than a firefighter. He's got people puking and bleeding all over him on calls in addition to dealing with general lunatics. He's also in a a total bind with his kids being divorced, how do you get your kids to school and home when you work a 24 hr shift? Also, unscrupulous chicks have the opportunity to cheat on you every time you are on shift.

So, its an excellent setup if you stay single, but invites trouble if you get into an LTR.

Post: #5

I don't know what state you're in, but there is a ton of competition for fire departments. More so than for PD's. I recommend getting your EMT license and see if you can do a few ride alongs with your local ambulance companies. A majority of your calls for service are medical call outs. Very rarely do you get actual fire calls unless you're in a big metropolitan city. Make sure you can stand the sight of blood and that you can tolerate being around the sick, injured, and diseased. That would be good for your oral interview. Not many applicants, both for fire and police go on ride alongs, so that will make you stand out. It will show them you've seen what the job entails first hand, and that you can hack it.

You also may want to see if any of your local community colleges offer "Fire Technology/Science" programs. Anything to help make you stand out and get that initial job. The plus side about fire is it's heavily male dominated. Police departments, in California at least, seem hell bent on recruiting more and more female officers. Not so for fire departments. So it's a safe environment to actually be a man in. Very rarely do you see women firefighters.

Get in great physical shape, and start learning how to cook real well. Great career if your single dude. Everyone loves a hero. Unlike with cops, people will generally be glad to see you and thankful for the help you've provided. Girls will fly at you with their legs spread so as long as you don't let yourself go.

Edit: Just reread that your a volunteer so you can forego the need for ride alongs. Go for it man.

Post: #6

Blue Ocean,

May 30th will mark my 15th anniversary as a firefighter. I spent twelve years as a blueshirt and the last three as an officer. I work for a busy urban department. We ran 9,600 calls last year.

The responses you have received from SpectrumWalker and Dr. Howard are accurate.

See this earlier post of mine with regards to getting hired:
/thread-45677.html

If you have any specific questions let me know.

Post: #7

For some balance, I know a lot of people in California who have worked season after season of volunteer firefighting, and despite having all the EMT credentials, were never able to find a permanent firefighting job, and ended up returning to school for a career change.

I also know some departments do a police/firefighter combo, whicb means you'd spend time being a police officer as well, but I believe it also increases your chances of getting in

Post: #8

(05-28-2015 08:34 AM)Lochte Wrote:  For some balance, I know a lot of people in California who have worked season after season of volunteer firefighting, and despite having all the EMT credentials, were never able to find a permanent firefighting job, and ended up returning to school for a career change.

I also know some departments do a police/firefighter combo, whicb means you'd spend time being a police officer as well, but I believe it also increases your chances of getting in

I'm not disputing that, Lochte. There are many more applicants than there are available slots. The younger you are when you start testing, the better though.

I know a guy who spent $10,000 testing for various departments. He traveled to Boston, New York, Denver, Chicago, Phoenix, etc. Plus he tested for a myriad of municipal departments.

It paid off for him. In the time I have known him he has been on four different departments. He finally landed where he wanted; Chicago.


His progression went like this:
1. Riding along busy companies in the city when he was a kid.
2. Was a member of an explorer program.
3.He got an Associates Degree in Fire Science.
4.Completed college while continuing to volunteer and ride in the city.
5. Moved to fire protection district where he was a paid on call fire fighter.
6. He got hired with me to a full time department.
7. He took every class, got every certification and got on as many special teams as possible.
8. After six years he got the call from Chicago and away he went. He's still angling to get to Squad 2.

He is not a female(obviously),a minority or veteran. AND his father is a somebody in the Fire Service. This is the kind of guy you are testing against.

PM me if you have any questions.

Some communities have Public Safety Officers, combo police and fire. I only know of two in the suburbs surround me and there are a lot of them. Funny thing is on all of those departments the new guys are police and the old guys are firefighters.

I've taken classes with them on occasion. They tell me that they haven't ridden on an engine or truck in years or in some cases ever!
They are all waiting for senior guys to retire so they can move over to an engine.

We have a saying:
"You'll meet a lot of cops who want to be firefighters but you'll never find a firefighter who wants to be a cop."

Post: #9

My brother in law is a fire fighter. The schedule is pretty mint, two 24 hour shifts a week, always separated by one day. It rotates every week, Monday/Wednesday then the following week Tuesday/Thursday and so on.

It's perfect for someone that has a side business or a job with a flexible schedule.

You see a lot of crazy shit, especially if you work in a major city.

Post: #10

An officer in the motorcycle club I hangout with is a fire chief. The impression I get from him is that it's hard work: a lot of odd hours, long shifts, and stressful situations to deal with on the job. Sometimes it's a normal workload and sometimes a major incident will occur and they'll end up working two or three days without any substantial time off or even sleep. Rarely they'll have incidents such as some wildfires fires that made national headlines that can push that up to a week or two.

There's also a lot of unusual situations they have to deal with besides fires. One time he talked about having to take care of two dudes that had experienced an accident while buttslamming each other and got themselves stuck in a car.

Despite all of that he seems to love the job. In most areas it's rewarding and it's also anything but boring if you've got a busy station. The downside is that it can be hard to go full time. some states have far more qualified people than open jobs, and some of the departments I looked into only recruit once per year....and if you miss the deadline then you get to wait until next year.

Post: #11

I was a medic for a while and worked for private bus service that was contracted with a medium sized western state city, I briefly thought of doing FF1, and could've but didn't. Insofar as FF's being medics all FF's are pretty much EMTs these days and if they didn't race the buses to code (bastards) they wouldn't have to deal with all the medical crap all the time. The bastard used to race us and beat us because people are more willing to get out of the way of 20 tons or red steel barreling down the street than a medic bus

And yes even out of shape middle aged FF's pull easy if they're wearing their bunker gear or department t's.

Post: #12

You can get hurt, both physically and mentally.

You may or may not be afraid of dying, but there are things worse than death.

For example, those hoses are very powerful, during an accident, whether due to too much pressure or just being caught off guard, the hose can move erratically, and if it smashes into your face, it can do some damage.

Running around with all that equipment, up and down stairs and all over the place, will cause wear and tear on your knees. When you're young, no problem, but as you age, you will start to notice the wear and tear.

The sleeping schedule can be hectic, which means being awoken randomly is fairly common, and you have to go from being asleep to being in full adrenaline mode in just a couple of seconds. Over the years, this causes wear and tear on your heart, which results in about half of firefighter deaths coming about as a result of a cardiovascular event.

You'll read about firefighter deaths, but you generally don't read too much about firefighters being maimed on the job. It happens, but because of so many different ways a person can be maimed, ranging from an injury that causes a permanent, but minor inconvenience, to a crippling injury that requires a caretaker and extensive, ongoing medical care, it's difficult to quantify into an easily digestible statistic on a spreadsheet, and so, gets less attention from the media.

Seeing people get hurt over and over, as you will during the EMT calls, can cause a mental burden over time.

It's an honorable job, the pay is good relative to the education required, and it does afford some extra free time for side gigs, but there are some definite downsides.

It's up to you to weigh the pros and cons and then make the decision...there's really no wrong or right choice here, it's up to each person and what they're looking for.

Post: #13

Thanks for advice fellas. Very solid stuff here.

A few more questions:

1. Would you recommend a large city FF dept over a smaller city? It seems like there's more opportunities to fight fire or be involved in
interest situations in the big cities. Also, better path for career development.

2. For FFers who are near retirement, how significant are the injuries incurred by the avg FFer? I feel like wear and tear is natural for any older man, but it'd be interesting
to know how much more FFing wears down your body. From what I've seen, lots of the FFers actually seem in better physical shape than comparable non-FFers (due to more
physical activity), but I could be wrong.

3. If FFing completely transitioned to an EMT position, would you (or you friend) still have the desire to do the job?

4. How much of an advantage does having an EMT License confer?

Quote:Insofar as FF's being medics all FF's are pretty much EMTs these days

That might actually be a good thing.

Here's why. The number of fires is on the decline, so FFers are less neccessary today than they used to be. However, as the population ages, there's more of a need for EMTs and those with
related training. By assuming the EMT role, FFers get to maintain their relevance and numbers. It's essentially the equivalent of business noticing that it's in a declining industry, so it branches off into a new industry.

Assuming EMT work is a smart way to tap into the quickly growing healthcare sector, while maintaining the FF dept's relevance.

Quote:The sleeping schedule can be hectic, which means being awoken randomly is fairly common, and you have to go from being asleep to being in full adrenaline mode in just a couple of seconds. Over the years, this causes wear and tear on your heart, which results in about half of firefighter deaths coming about as a result of a cardiovascular event.

Spaniard, an actuarial study found that firefighters have an average life expectancy comparable to the general population. http://blogs.marketwatch.com/encore/2014...die-young/

That doesn't contradict what you're saying about physical/mental burnout, but I felt like it's a useful fact to know.

Post: #14

That isn't necessarily a useful statistic though. Keep in mind that firefighters have to maintain a very high level of physical fitness, and that people that fit typically live far longer than the average america.

Post: #15

I'll throw in one more question.

What are the odds of being exposed to HIV or Hepatitis while on the job? Is it something to worry about?

Post: #16

Good job, I went on an observation shift with a fire department based Dallas. They seemed to have a good laugh. Less interesting and exciting than law enforcement, but you will get more respect and can build a lifestyle or side job around whatever you decide to do. If you are business minded, then it would be a good option.

Post: #17

On a related note, I'd love to hear from anyone who is a cop on how that is as a career.

Police Officer datasheet request.

Post: #18

(05-30-2015 10:37 AM)BlueOcean Wrote:  I'll throw in one more question.

What are the odds of being exposed to HIV or Hepatitis while on the job? Is it something to worry about?

My buddy has to get blood tests all of the time, he's like "guess what happens when you give a drug addict that is OD'ing a reversal drug? They sit up and puke all over you" blood borne infections are probably the thing he's paranoid about the most despite having a couple of nagging athletic type injuries from doing the job.

I do also have to do my duty as a logging guy and advise you check out forest fire fighting crews. In terms of chicks you get the same cool t-shirts and awesome stories, you get to retire at age 55, deal with fire and boredom vs. mainly medical calls and boredom. The work is seasonal so you can fuck off to the Philippines in the winter and if you stick with the job and specialized training you can land a full time job as a fire boss when you are older which is a full time office job.

You also get to ride in helicopters and drive MRAP type firetrucks or bulldozers and live near a national park in most cases. You rack up huge overtime hours during bad fire season and get shipped all over the country.

Last but not least, many rural fire departments have an overlapping responsibility to respond to wildland fires...like grass fires, encroaching forest fires, burning barns etc and a solid forest fire background would differentiate you from regular firefighter candidates for rural departments.