Best Careers 2009: Firefighter

Unemployeed Firefighter

Yes being a firefighter was a great career, until it was abruptly cut short nearly five years ago. In 2005 I was laid off with dozens of my firefighter coworker (some at the same time, some later in 2006 and 2007), From our industrial firefighting job @ Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y. The County Monroe the County we live and worked in has basically turned their back on us, we have been treated like lepers. Holding to antiquated civil service laws about what Fire Districts you live in and where you can't apply for work because of that residency requirement. What about the experience and education we could offer to these departments? I had over 28 years of experience as a firefighter and a Bachelors Degree in Fire/Emergency Management and I still can't get a job in my previous career. Now I'm 51 and age discrimination has come in to play (oh yes it is alive and well in today's job market). All I want to do is finish my career in the profession I love while supporting my family and I can't because of outdated rules and ideals that don't belong in today's economy. I'm now forced to looking into going over seas as a contract firefighter until I can afford to retire and missing my 3 girls finish high school in the process. As I said it was a great profession until I lost my job, my career, my self respect and my ability to provide for my family (The Brotherhood has failed my coworkers and I flat out and that hurts!). I'm not looking for a handout just a leg up in a rough economy. Firefighters are use to taking out of control situations and bringing them into control, imagine the nightmare of not being able to control your life and families situation, because no one cares anymore about anyone but themselves. I've been through 5 years of hell that I never imagined could happen in our profession, so beware the honor of the Brotherhood has changed!

Daniel S. adams of NY @ Nov 20, 2009 07:53:52 AM

Forest Service Fire Fighter

I have worked in the fire service for 30 years, I work in the great outdoors, mostly on wildland fires all over the U.S. traveled in old broken down DC3 airplanes, that you had to wait for it because they needed to put spark pulgs it her before they picked your crew up, and we have traveled in brand new Engines, nice and shinny, and smelled new until the first off forest assignment for two weeks, then it smells like smoke, I have had days where we went to do some pile burning, on the way found people who killed themself, turned that in proceed on to find a car over the edge, do a medical, call the helicopter to fly them out, contuning on to help out with a flat tire, stop at a campground only to find a camp fire creeping through the freshly fallen leaves, put that out, burn a few piles, time to head home, on the way gotta go looking for an overdue hunter, find him after dark, half way up the hill where he just shot a monster 6 point buck and had a heart attack, and died this doesn't happen every day but you never know what you will come across in a day, so you just gotta do what you gotta do, and hope you make it home safely, thanks for reading and hope all ends good in your world.

Marc of CA @ Nov 19, 2009 17:36:33 PM

To Stan

I wish you luck, then. Don't die!

Ivy Noelle of IL @ Nov 10, 2009 12:40:45 PM

A little inaccurate

Just an FYI what the above scenario is not as described, "This is far more than any firefighter would experience in a single day, but it will give an idea of this career's range of activities". This could easily be experienced and more depending how busy your department is. Now I'm not saying your going to have someone die in your arms and rescue someone from a fire everyday. but having a person with a heart attack, a couple fire alarms and an actual fire is not a extraordinary experience.

ILFFPM of IL @ Nov 07, 2009 18:16:33 PM

Firefghters vs. police.

Hello i am john, I am currently working on my associates in firescience, and plan to become a career firefighter. First of all let me say firefighters are not payed to sit and eat. While on shift they do a number of things while not being on call. These things range from filling out the necessary legal paperwork, (which for those of you who don't know that's a real cold bitch) they perform maintenance work on all of their equipment weekly, the clean the hall, they sometimes do fire awareness in school, and do pre-plans(which are necessary but also suck), all these among other things they do while not on a call. You don't go into firefighting trying to be a hero, because if you do you will not succeed. It is way too long of training, and way too much work simply to get onto a force for that. It is one of the most competitive jobs you can get into. As for whether firefighters are better than cops.... their really isnt a "better" they both do their jobs which are in some way similar, but in many way different. There is in essence no way to judge who is better, because they are in no way the same. However firefighters generally are more liked, because no one fears a firefighter, when their there normally your getting saved, but a police officer, may save you but there's always that thought that..uh oh what if I'm in trouble.

John of TN @ Oct 05, 2009 16:57:33 PM

sounds very interesting

im doing a thing for career studies researching jobs, and firefighting , to me sounds very interesting it seems like someone i want to do after school, my house recently caught on fire i wasnt there at the time, but this im very seriously considering.

Stan @ Oct 05, 2009 11:36:06 AM

Seriously?

I think some of you all are idiots, We NEED Fire, Police and EMS. I've worked Fire and EMS for a while now, we work closely with the cops on alot of our calls and you know what? we couldn't do any of it if one service was missing. There's been a couple calls i could have been shanked on had the cops not been there. One is not important than the others, Wake up idiots...who is gonna put out a fire at 2 in the morning if you don't pay some TRAINED PROFESSIONALS to be ready to at all times. Pay firefighters less? are you friggen serious? some guys can barely support their families on what they make, yet we have government leadership jobs that give themselves raises every year to push paper around on a desk and lie to our faces. Pay our Emergency workers what they are worth, and whoever was putting 9/11 firefighters down becaus "cops were there first". 313 Firefighters died that day so you should go crawl in a hole and die you jerk. Have some respect.

Honor the Fallen,

Respect the Standing.

Rory of WY @ Sep 30, 2009 23:15:54 PM

Went of a ride-a-long TWICE

I went of a ride-a-line with at LA County fire department on the outskirts of LA. I got there and they were doing their physical training which consisted of playing basketball. When I showed up with a video camera, (which one of the firefighters, who happened to be my friend, suggested I bring) the other fire fighters were all happy because they said whenever someone brings a video camera it is a slow day.

In the course of 24 hours we had about 12 calls. I saw shootings, a prosititute who overdosed on drugs and the man with her was trying to act like he was walking by the motel room and saw her in that condition, a car fire (which the captains 11 year old son put out), a kid hit by a car (the car was moving slow so he was barely touched), the day ended with a house fire at 5:00 am. Even with all the calls there was still a lot of sit around time, but what are you going to do?

The following year I went again at the same station, this time there were hardly any calls, the calls we got was a rubbish fire. Another call was the police had broken up a mini riot at a block party, and someone had called the fire department. All in all it was boring.

There were several things about the ride-a-long, first, one guy had porno playing on his tv all day (although he didn't watch it all day), and the vast majority of time was spent playing video games and watching tv. In fact, it was funny, because during the Raider's game, we didn't get any calls, as soon as it was over we did lol.

After the first ride-a-long I felt kind of let down. I had always thought of firemen as heroes, but most of the firemen hated their jobs, and especially hated rescue calls. One fireman, upon showing up to work to start a 4 day shirt said, "F*** I have to be here for 4 days." Many of the firemen wanted to transfer to stations in Malibu or areas like that so they won't have to go on rescue calls. On the other hand, when they knew the call was a fire, they couldn't get out of the station fast enough.

As for my friend, he is now a Captain at a station where he goes out on about 4 calls per month.

I feel that if the state of California really wants to save some money, they should pay the firemen a minimum wage salary during their down time and then when they get calls, increase their pay. In the end, I think some firemen think more of their job than what it actually is.

I've been there of CA @ Sep 26, 2009 11:27:58 AM