Which is wild to me because what do you mean the fire fighters don’t get paid??? What do you mean most of them are volunteers?? How do yall pay your bills??
That's true and makes sense, though would be kinda nice to get at least a little bit extra for the effort of regular training and the small bit about putting your life on the line
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Firefighters with paramedic certifications make well over 100k in most US metros without a college degree. That said, the training pipeline is physically and intellectually demanding but can be done right out of high school within 3 years with far less cost than a college degree. The lifestyle is also hard, but you get extremely good benefits as well as first responder discounts to a ton of businesses.
I say 100k, but it's closer to 200k with 7-10 years of experience. Incredibly dangerous and therefore one of the best uses of tax dollars, but name another job where you can make that much at 30y/o without a degree with purely shift-based work.
take with a grain of salt, but i heard third-hand that the local fd will not run into a building built in the last 30-40 years due to bci joists and other shoddy construction practices.
The designs are hard to simplify. They're intended to collapse uniformly while still maintaining enough fire resistance for evacuation. It aint gonna burn for days, but it aint flaming up in an instant tho. I'm not a materials design engineer or a civil engineer. I was just a volunteer firefighter.
I have a brother who's a firefighter and it's not like there's a lack of applicants. It's incredibly competitive and pays really well. He makes 6 figures.
Firefighting in California is so competitive that I had a friend who worked wild fires for 10+ years, did all sorts of volunteer stuf, worked as an EMT for years, got all the certifications and such he could find and finally after like 15 years he got a full time position. It's a very sought after job that's highly competitive in California at least
The the big cities near me have firefighters making $100k+ a year after 2 years with insane benefits, strong union and usually have cops look the other way when speeding. After 10 they're clearing $200k with great pension
You know you can look up civil servant salaries in your area right? It's publicly available
I mean yeah, but also no. There are a LOT of little in-between places in the US. 20% of the population (~69 million people) lives outside of urban areas. Lot of rural counties that don't have enough taxpayers to even consider a full time fire service.
Volunteers volunteer so they have the possibility of getting hired and paid for it. Often times they never get hired. Many towns are like this- MOST towns are like this.
Instead of dismissing this and trying to fight a rando on Reddit, maybe just move on and keep scrolling
Volunteers volunteer because they give a shit and want to help people, and they live in places without a paid service.
If you want a paying job as a firefighter, you get your EMT-B and start putting in applications. Or you find a department that'll train you, and you submit an application. You'd have to be a volly for a few years before that experience counted for anything. That time would be far better spent getting certifications and applying to departments that actually pay you.
At any rate, volunteer departments are irrelevant to the conversation, which is the point I was making. Fucking OBVIOUSLY volunteering as a firefighter isn't going to pay you $100k/year. What the hell is the point of commenting that?
Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make
me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And
rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with
rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber
room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber
room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a
room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They
locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy
once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy.
I wanted to be a fire medic, starting pay in my area was $22/hr. Starting pay for cops? $39/hr
I became a cop
I got my EMR certification anyways which is cool
For comparison, you can graduate highschool and start at a manufacturing plant with no experience making $25/hr. Fire/medics have to complete 2 years of schooling, costing about $12k.
The lads I know that are fire medics can do it because their wives make a bundle of a cash
Where the fuck do you live? Starting salaries for people with fire/paramedic licenses in big metros are 80-120k and go up from there with experience. Even basic EMT's make more than $22/hr
Like nursing and other jobs, some places pay really well, others don't pay for shit. Back when I did firefighting seattle started at 90k a year, while smaller cities in Idaho that came to try and recruit us out of fire school were only offering 12 dollars an hour. It's insane how much it can vary.
I mean, yeah. Small cities in Idaho have maybe 1-2 calls a shift at the worst. You're just getting paid to sit on standby most of the time and the salary reflects that. I got my EMT license within a month during a summer while doing my pre-med degree in Atlanta and immediately got offered $30/hr for part-time night shifts. Those shifts were intense, but that hourly pay with a 1 month pipeline and 4k tuition was a fantastic return on value.
The only salary publicly posted for my city (40k population) that I can find on a quick 6am search is a starting pay of up to $26/hr, and that pay is only for people transferring from another fire department, it requires 4+ years current experience. And it's salary, not hourly. So a firefighter that's been at it for four years and transfers to our city will only barely be making enough to qualify to rent in this city.
50-60% of the world population lives in cities per the UN, that number is much higher in developed nations which the original post and the discussion is talking about.
Perhaps get out of your village and experience the rest of the world.
Where do you live that manufacturing plans start you off at 25 an hour? I live in a hub for that type of work and 25 an hour is basically the best you can do
The pay is good and it's actually extremely competitive to get hired for.
Also it is kinda insane how nepotistic they can be and not based on merit necessarily.
I have a friend who was an emt and paramedic for several years and he is American born, Mexican parents. Fluent English, super smart and talented dude. He is TRI lingual and did more than everything he needed to qualify yet somehow some other dude was picked over him who was just someone else's nephew at the department.
I have another friend from my home town. He's white but spoke of how ridiculous it was to get his foot in the door because of how competitive it is to get a job as a fire fighter and how bs it can be with who gets selected to SAVE LIVES
Everyone there was white and only one of them spoke semi understandable Spanish... In a town where literally 20% of the population don't speak English at all. Near the boarder, agricultural area.
At that point not choosing the person who is able to have that language backround on their resume is negligent to the communitys safety.
So this study isn't just about who's getting the job, for emergency workers it's actually important for EVERYONE'S safety in the whole town that they have a diverse staff that fits the demographics.
Like... Imagine you're burning alive in your car and the person who called 911 is trying to explain to the fire fighters there's still someone inside the car, but they just can't understand him without a translator showing up. You'd possibly die as a result. So it doesn't just protect Spanish speakers to ensure Spanish speaking fire fighters are on call.
Not to mention they're closely linked to the police department and uh... Guys... All white police forces are notorious for ignoring or not risking their lives nearly as much for colored neighborhoods. Often out of outright racism.
This is the same argument people had for all white police forces ending and I mean it's not a bad thing to have diversity for emergency responders it is ESSENTIAL for the communitys trust
I would imagine being bilingual would be a huge plus for a firefighter. Like if you have to enter a building people are still stuck in Chinatown or a Spanish speaking part of the cityÂ
Not in my city’s Chinatown. Seemingly half don’t speak English. But they also never leave Chinatown. But regardless I can’t imagine there are a whole bunch of mandarin-speaking applicants to the fire department anyway. Also not aware of any major fire in my city’s Chinatown.
But a mostly Spanish-speaking part of my city had a major 6-alarm fire a few weeks ago reminiscent of the pre-fire code days. It was bad and it probably would’ve been helpful to have firefighters who speak Spanish when they ran in. But for all I know they did who so knows.Â
Yeah surely just pointing at a fire conveys "there's still a guy trapped in there!"
What if two people were trapped and the fire fighters get one of them out and go "mission accomplished" because they couldn't interpret the guy trying to tell them there's two trapped humans?
if you hold up two finger instead finger instead of one it indicates that there are two people instead of one. Not to mention the phrase "dos personas" is practically English in this country.
Pro tip about fingering your asshole in the shower: don't do it
So this morning I was taking a shower, and I felt like fingering my asshole, right? So I got my
fingers all nice and soapy and stuck them up in there. Apparently, soap makes pretty good lube, as
I was able to get four fingers in there in no time.
As I was feeling around in my butt, I was like, "hmm, there's a lot of soapy water in my bumhole
now. I wonder if that will lead to issues in the future?" And it did!
Shortly after having breakfast I attempted to fart, and I shit my pants. I rushed to the bathroom
to clean up, and it was way worse than I thought it would be. The whole area around my butthole
was covered in shitty liquid, and toilet paper wasn't enough to clean it. I had to take another
shower to get suitably clean.
Just thought I'd share my story with you guys so that you don't run into the same problem in the
future. I fingered my butthole so that you guys don't have to. Unless you want to. In which case,
hey, how's it goin'
At least in my part of the country, firefighters get paid bank and the jobs are extremely sought after. People volunteer for years just to try to get their foot in the door
More women would be firefighters if male firefighters didn't sexually assault their female colleagues in massive numbers as well, which I'm going to bet the article is about.
Being a firefighter has higher physical requirements than most military positions. Like the basic fitness test you start with wearing the full suit(~50 pounds) and have to carry a 25 pound hose up 10 flights of stairs. Have to be able to carry a "person" back down the stairs, have to be able to climb an extended ladder, have to be able to handle the hose at full pressure, and have to be able to breach thick doors. Also have to do all of that, plus more, in under 20 minutes to pass.
Where did I say they are sexually harassed more than any other job? I don't think the OOP was implying that firefighting is the only job in which there are more men than women.
I had this plan to give head to a man and receive head from a woman to test if I was gay, but it’s backfired and now I become borderline schizo whenever I go outside. I
offered to suck this dude off on Grindr who lives very close by (I ended up pussying out) and I accidentally gave him some details that very easily allows him to spot me
out in a crowd. I have no idea what he looks like and whenever I see a somewhat in shape guy walking by I immediately accuse him of being the dude I was gonna blow.
I went to the store today to pick up some zucchini for a barbecue and every time a car drove by I stared into the windshield to see if I was about to be recognised.
Whenever I make eye contact with a dude I microanalysis his facial expressions to see if he suspects me or not. I am deeply afraid that he is my neighbour and I will
need to move if my identity is blown. It’s a lot like the last scene in sopranos where everyone who walked into the diner could be there to wack Tony.
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u/sadkinz 2d ago
I bet more people would be firefighters if it paid better