Why does the public hate firefighters

However, we can make some generalizations. Here are four reasons why you should not become a firefighter. Too many future firefighters get mesmerized by the dollar signs. Salaries for firefighters vary greatly around the United States, and it is important to get paid a fair wage for the work you perform. In some regions, firefighters are barely paid minimum wage. In other areas, firefighters are paid very competitive salaries that allow them to live comfortably I didn't say extravagantly, just comfortably if they make wise financial decisions over the course of their career.

Salaries can and do change, based on a number of reasons, most of which are out of your control. What may be a low salary at the start of your career may change for the better over time, or it may change for the worse. Many consider becoming a firefighter for the retirement and healthcare benefits.

Many cities, counties and states have had to drastically modify their benefits packages so that they can continue to pay their employees without going bankrupt.

Most communities are not swimming in revenue. Many firefighters have to pay more out of pocket to keep their current benefits, especially if they also want to keep their salaries intact, not to mention getting raises in the future.

In short, realize that benefits can and will change, and often not for the better. Do what you can to ensure you are part of the solution, not the problem. That means don't complain about your department reducing the benefits when you know the costs are rising, especially if you don't want to pay more out of pocket for them. Firefighters typically work 10 hour shifts per month in some form. There are a number of different schedules that can and may change over the course of your career.

No one schedule is better than the other. Some departments work a day and get two days off. Other departments work two days in a row and get four days off.

They all usually average the same number of hours that most firefighters typically work, which seems to be about 56 hours per week. I honestly didn't care what schedule I worked when I got hired because I just wanted to be a firefighter. They will never feel the profound sadness that we do as a result of seeing too much. They will never breathe in the smell of death as it lingers on the recently deceased, before the undertaker does his work.

They will never wonder how they will even make it home, and get on with things after what they've witnessed. They don't have to know about any of it. We let them imagine how bad it can be, and allow them the luxury of thinking that they have imagined it right. They don't have to bear the burden of life at its most raw and powerful. They have the luxury of watching the world go by through their screens — screens that don't scream, screens that don't burn or bleed.

We let them think that life is fair, with an occasional aberration. We allow them the luxury of the illusion of safety and fairness as life barrels along. They do not need to know how often things veer out of control. They don't have to know what we know. We remember how it felt to be innocent. We know exactly how good it feels to not see the brutal realities that linger just out of sight.

All we want is to keep the people who depend on us far away from the things we dread … and we want to survive this career with our hope, health and sanity intact. You must enable JavaScript in your browser to view and post comments. More FireRescue1 Articles. More Product Listings. More Product news. Make FireRescue1 your homepage. Reducing firefighter cancer risk: How emotionally attached are you?

More than 1, courses and videos, including more than hours of approved EMS credit! The future of turnout gear is about to be decided. Sitting in my favorite chair in the living room of my newly remodeled condo, I heard the violent breaking of glass. It sounded like someone was throwing bottles on the sidewalk with great force. The year was was After nearly a decade of work restoring and remodeling the three-unit building where I lived for 38 years in San Francisco, it nearly burned down that day.

I had brought my cell phone and immediately called Someone had already called and the fire department said a truck was on the way. It seemed like it took forever but later I learned it had taken two minutes to come from our neighborhood firehouse at Holly Park.

A woman in a bathrobe emerged at a run from the ground level of the house next door. She had been in the shower when she smelled smoke. We knew that many people lived in the house. The owners of the single-family dwelling had divided it up into plywood cells with doors and locks, which they rented to Chinese immigrants, most of whom spoke no English.

We had no idea how many people might be in the building. I should add at this point that I hate fire men. Not firewomen, only the men. And not the firemen of color. Only the white men. Whenever we have occasion to honor firefighters, which is lately often as the West has been burning up every year, I stand back and think to myself, I hate these mofos.

When I tell anyone I hate fire men , the reaction is always shock. I may never get over it. My hatred has roots in the decades-long fight to integrate women and people of color into the department, formed by listening to the stories of female firefighters who had to live in the firehouses where they were hated, denigrated, physically attacked and whose lives were in danger from the men they worked with.

The idea that firefighters are heroes to be worshipped not only had an unfortunate effect on the culture at the firehouses, inflating already overinflated egos. It also made opposing the white men more difficult. They used the positive stereotype to their advantage, calling on the testimony of citizens whose lives and property had been saved. Before women fought their way in to the SFFD, men of color experienced a racist culture and lack of safety in the department.

The first black firefighter entered the department in as the result of a lawsuit. The San Francisco fire fighters union, local , and its international affiliate, possibly the most racist union in the country, waged a campaign to keep minorities and women out of the department. Once they got in, the union and the white men did whatever they could to make their lives miserable. Swastikas, confederate flags, death threats, excrement in boots, tampering with safety equipment, discriminatory entrance exams were some of the tactics.

Robert Demmons, a black firefighter, sued the department for discrimination and the lawsuit later included women and other men of color as plaintiffs.

Although agitation to include women in these well-paid jobs began in the s, the first women did not enter the department until In the lawsuit, women were lucky to draw a judge who saw that breaking the gender barrier required strong measures. The SFFD resisted the decree but they had to comply. The ten percent goal for women was met in and the decree lifted. The person who files the lawsuit, whether in the trades or other professions, usually ends up dead or blacklisted, a martyr to the cause.

Bob Demmons, who became president of the Black Firefighters Association, went to work every day thinking he might be killed. Several attempts were made on his life. We affirmative action activists thought Bob would end up as our martyr, but instead he was appointed chief of the department in by Mayor Willie Brown. The department was still a mess and Bob worked closely with women and other men of color to change the culture.

He knew he would have only a short time before the union and racists got him removed and he moved as quickly as he could to bring in and promote more women and minorities.

I think Bob did more than any other individual to make firefighter jobs available to women. We women did have a martyr, Anne Young, one of the first four women to be hired as firefighters, the first lesbian and also the first female lieutenant.

Anne became the public face of women and so she endured the worst harassment. An electrician, I was involved in the fight for affirmative action, agitating to get women into the construction trades and other male-dominated jobs.