r/Firefighting • u/Launch_Rockface • Jul 10 '25
General Discussion Unpopular Opinions In the Fire Service
I am curious what other peoples unpopular opinions of the fire service are? I know there are alot of things we are doing or trying to do to improve the fire service as far as training and wellness, but I also know alot of it is just not that great in my opinion.
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u/Strict-Canary-4175 Jul 11 '25
I don’t like fucking with the new kids that much. I expect them to do most of the work, let them take a nap and eat first.
I believe in being good at EMS. Yeah I don’t like it either, definitely not my first choice. But it’s so much of our job and there’s really not an excuse to be shitty at it.
I don’t believe in wearing fire gear for things besides drill and fire runs. I will never force my guys to wear bunker pants on EMS runs because they have shorts or sweats on because they were working out or sleeping. The gear is killing us and people don’t want that dirty shit in their house anyway.
This job can’t be your whole life, and personality. Leave your whacker t shirts at home and get a hobby that doesn’t have anything to do with the job.
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u/locknloadchode TX FF/Medic Jul 11 '25
In regards to your first paragraph, do you work at a department with high turnover? I felt like this at my first department because I was always having some new rookie to mentor. I hated it because I swore I would never become that guy when I had first started, and that I would always be a senior man that a rookie could come to with even the dumbest questions.
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u/Strict-Canary-4175 Jul 11 '25
There is almost zero turnover. MAYBE one person separates per year, and we hire 100ish people per year. So there are lots of new guys because there’s a lot of guys in general.
I feel the same way. I remember the people who answered questions, supported me, helped me when I was new. I will always try to be the person that new kids can come to as well. Not only that, but in my opinion if the only thing I see a guy saying to the new kids is to put them down or roll a ball, I automatically think that he’s only saying negative shit because he doesn’t have anything to teach them. And they don’t have anything to teach them because THEY don’t know their job very well.
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u/tacosmuggler99 Jul 11 '25
I’ve always felt I work for my probies. What I mean by that is a huge factor in whether they’re good or not is what myself and the crew teach them. You’ll always get some that just dont give a shit, but most are open and receptive. If I’m being a dick I’m doing them, myself and the department a disservice.
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u/Strict-Canary-4175 Jul 11 '25
Yes. That’s a super good point. You ARE a factor in if they’re good or not. And then when you send them into the world, and they take details everyone else will see how they behave. And the boys will know who trained them!
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u/mad-i-moody Jul 11 '25
As a probie myself I appreciate people like you guys. The guys who have been on for years and “recline by 9” and heave a giant sigh when I ask for simple help or explanation on something just suck.
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u/FloodedHoseBed career firefighter Jul 11 '25
Running booters into the ground and treating them like the stations maid slave boils my blood. Absolutely they should do some extras but abusing the booter and making them doing every ast thing and especially not taking them out to train and get better is such fucking bullshit and it’s so normalized in the fire service.
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u/Direct-Training9217 Jul 11 '25
I agree with everything you say (your job is to train the rookie, his job is to work hard), except....
My unpopular opinion is that PFAS in gear is overblown. There aren't a ton of studies on it and the big ones study PFAS in drinking water. Those aren't super conclusive and obviously drinking water is way more direct and way more frequent exposure. Honestly sleep deprivation and being out of shape probably cause more cancer than the PFAS. Obviously don't wear your gear 24/7 but putting on bunker pants for an EMS call or working out in gear is not as big a deal (imo) as people make it. I workout in gear once a tour, because I think that being comfortable and cardiovascularly prepared is worth the trade off
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u/BriGuy550 Jul 11 '25
I share your opinion about PFAS. There is way more risk from wearing around contaminated gear that hasn’t been cleaned. Are there even studies out there directly relating it to fire gear? It’s present in nearly all good quality waterproof clothing people wear every day.
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u/evanka5281 Jul 11 '25
This right here. I make eggs on a non-stick pan every morning that’s coated in PFAS. My raincoat has PFAS. This whole thing seems to me like something Edzo pushed to force out Schaitberger. It’s been years since he took over as president of the international and he still makes this claim of “the companies knew and were paying Harold to keep quiet” at every major conference. He paid Mark Ruffalo to star in a short film about it. It just wreaks of propaganda.
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u/-kielbasa Jul 11 '25
Sometimes it’s nice having bunker pants on when you’re kneeling in some bodily fluids
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u/Strict-Canary-4175 Jul 11 '25
And I will fight for your right to have the choice to put them on if you want. I just said I won’t force my guys do wear them.
And you didn’t ask for help, but I would also maybe just..,. No kneel in body fluids. You really shouldn’t have that on your bunker gear either. And that’s like totally avoidable so.
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u/tamman2000 Jul 11 '25
I'm a volly with about 18 months in my department.
We have a 23 year old on my department that shows up to lift assists in boots and bunker pants. I haven't said anything about it yet (partly because we're a really small town and I live a lot closer than he does to most of our calls, so I've only noticed that it's consistent in the last week. Also, he's the chief's son) but I can't imagine why he would show up in POV then put on bunker pants to walk into someone's house when there is no risk of fire. It's one thing if you were training when you caught a medical call, but it's another to put them on just for the call so you can track soot into a stranger's house.
It reeks of "look, I'm a firefighter". No shit you're a firefighter. They called 911 and you showed up.
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u/McthiccumTheChikum FIREFIGHTER/PARAGOD Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
All transports should be closest appropriate facility.
If your medics can't discern "appropriate facility" you have much bigger problems.
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u/Rich_Abroad1592 Jul 11 '25
Couldn’t agree more! Especially when the patient is using us as a taxi service anyway.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 Jul 11 '25
It is more complicated than that. I can’t tie a unit up because some idiot had a surgery 4 hours away.
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u/BetCommercial286 Jul 11 '25
Not really. Why would you have to that far? Traumas should got to a trauma center and flown if required. Same with burns or GI issues. Your doing your pt a disservice and harm by taking a GI bleed to a place that can’t scope or stop a bleed. Or an eptomic pregnancy to a non OB center EMTALA takes time and sometimes it matters.
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u/trapper2530 Jul 11 '25
That's not what anyone's saying. Those would be closest appropriate hospital. They're saying bc theybahd surgery 2 weeks ago and now have abdominal pain they dont need to go to big city hospital when the smaller hospital is capable of handling it. Therefore the closest appropriate facility. They are 37 weeks pregnant and the hospital 3 blocks away doesn't have OB then you go to the one 15 min away. Closest appropriate.
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u/Ok_Buddy_9087 Edit to create your own flair Jul 11 '25
Appropriate is relative. Abdominal pain, nausea/vomiting in a colon cancer patient? I have no problem going to where their oncologist is, even St. Farthest, and neither should you.
Nosebleed on Coumadin and you want to go to where your PVP is 20 minutes away instead of the city hospital 10 minutes away? Yeah, your PVP doesn’t gaf about your nosebleed.
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u/SmokeEater1375 Northeast - FF/P , career and call/vol Jul 11 '25
Mixed opinions on this and it’s probably system dependent but being in a busy suburb and only two ambulances, we can’t really afford to go 40 minutes into the Mothership of hospitals in Boston when theres hospitals 5, 10 and 15 minutes from us. We’re doing a disservice to the other tens of thousands of people in town - especially since these ambulances also cross-staff a ladder truck.
BUT I have no problems going in for very specific reasons. Most recently a cancer patient started an immunotherapy drug that morning and had terrible side effects that night - to the mothership we go. But for something like generalized abdominal pain even in a colon cancer patient, they could have it for plenty of other reasons. I’d rather let the local hospital do tests/imagine etc etc and discern if they can handle it or not and then from there decide to transfer the patient. They’re an emergency department and that makes it an appropriate facility. Appropriate doesn’t always mean highest levels of care - if that was the case I should be taking every patient to Boston to some of the best hospitals in the world. I feel as if my cog in the system is to get them definitive care and let the doctors do what they do to decide the best patient care plan. Unless a very relevant reason or clear correlation between a condition/procedure and an acute complaint, I like to stay local.
Then obviously the need to go to a level 1 trauma or burn center….then again, into the city we go. Fine with that.
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u/Rich_Abroad1592 Jul 11 '25
Old guys refusing to let change happen with current practices. They constantly bitch but are able to retire. Also not training your probies to be the best FF they can be and complain when they make mistakes and belittle them.
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u/superspeck Jul 11 '25
*the best FF for the current fire service not the best FF for the 1995 fire service
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u/BobBret Jul 11 '25
I hope you don't mind my asking, but what do you see as the big differences between the current fire service and the 1995 fire service?
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u/superspeck Jul 11 '25
- Real Firefighters hate medic calls
- Real Firefighters never clean their helmet and wear it to bed
- Real Firefighters don’t SCBA until they can’t handle the smoke
- Real Firefighters make probies clean bathrooms and wash trucks
I could probably go on. I don’t want to be a real firefighter in a lot of departments. Took some work to find a volunteer fit. Do it as a team or don’t do it at all.
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u/Rich_Abroad1592 Jul 11 '25
Massive influx of EMS calls and 911 abuse would be my main one. Back in the day people would call 911 when there was an actual emergency not toe pain at 2 am.
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u/Material-Win-2781 Volunteer fire/EMS Jul 11 '25
My first EMS experience was in 89-92... One of our most infamous was a kid who had a 2nd degree burn on her fingertip from grabbing a pop tart right when it came out of the toaster.
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u/BetCommercial286 Jul 11 '25
This dream world existed?! All I know is modern abuse and now I’m used to it.
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u/trapper2530 Jul 11 '25
Old guys love to bitch that no one wants to work hard anymore while sitting on the couch. Then reminisce about how the old guys qhen they came on drilled them all the the time.
We also have some rigs that take 10 years to get on bc they get so many fires. And when someone happens to get it with 5 years you always hear. Back in my day that was a 10-15 year spot. Then you talk to someone else with 25 yearz and hear they got a spot with 2.5 years.
Old guys love to bitch and complain and talk about how it used to be better but also are rhe ones not training or teaching.
A house near mine had a guy transfer after 1 year and asked to leave bc he didn't know anything. But the crew literally never worked with him. How is he supposed to know what to do if the officer and other.FFs dont work with him.
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u/rogersrangers55 Jul 11 '25
We aren’t needed for 80% of the calls we are called for and I’m tired of pretending we are. We also should be more proactive towards making people realize this.
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u/BrianKindly 200 years of tradition, unimpeded by progress Jul 11 '25
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only person screaming this from the fucking roof tops.
“911 what’s your emergency?”
“My tooth hurts and I need to go to the hospital”
We need to start asking them if their legs are also broken, they don’t have a vehicle, or anyone to call. Fuck, download uber…
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u/rogersrangers55 Jul 11 '25
We shout the system is broken (healthcare) and shout we are here to help. Yet all we are doing is greatly contributing to the broken system itself.
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u/BrianKindly 200 years of tradition, unimpeded by progress Jul 11 '25
10000% - I often wonder if Medicare/Medicaid wouldn't need all these cuts if we wouldn't be dragging so much bullshit to the ER. Unnecessary ambulance bill followed by and unnecessary hospital bill, all for most things that could be handled by an primary doctor or even urgent care.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 Jul 11 '25
Until primary care is held accountable for not being able to see patients, nothing will be done.
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u/Careful_Reason_9992 Jul 11 '25
Its hard when there aren’t enough doctors because med school is stupid expensive, and reimbursement rates for medicare/medicaid are shit. Most primary care docs spend 5-10 minutes with a patient before having to move on to the next. A bigger part of the problem is too many people these days are fat, stupid, and lazy. Fat cuz they eat like shit. Stupid cuz they won’t educate themselves on their shitty diet and the effects that causes on their health. And lazy cuz they won’t exercise. I’m sure that’s oversimplified but its in the ballpark.
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u/tamman2000 Jul 11 '25
Cost of education isn't what limits the supply of doctors. That's a degree that makes it really easy to pay off loans... What limits the supply of doctors is that the limit on the number of residencies the AMA will support in any year. Basically the doctor's organization (think of it like a union) determines how many new doctors can get their last level of training to become board certified so they can keep their pay up.
There's a movement to increase their numbers for the good of the patients, but a bunch of greedy fucks fight that movement for their own wallets.
(My dad was a medical school professor/neuropharmacology researcher. You're largely getting his take on this as remembered by me)
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u/rogersrangers55 Jul 11 '25
Yes! We are using resources for things that could be handled by a student with a stethoscope and a BP cuff.
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u/BrianKindly 200 years of tradition, unimpeded by progress Jul 11 '25
Yep, and every single one is wearing our people down, especially in the middle of the night, decreasing their mental readiness for an actual medical emergency of serious fire.
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u/djakeca Jul 11 '25
Many people have free healthcare and they access it by going to the ER for everything and never paying when the bill is due.
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u/hezuschristos Jul 11 '25
Call volumes drive job numbers. Not saying it’s right, but chief sometimes chase call volume to justify current and/or more staffing.
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u/PearlDrummer Oregon FF/Medic Jul 11 '25
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u/HanjobSolo69 Recliner Operator Jul 11 '25
This. I sometimes dream of a city or county that starts doing "tough love" with citizens. Im talking aggressive public education about when to call 911 and straight up refusing care for obvious bullshit medicals. Even some fire alarms we don't need to be there. Call a plumber or HVAC guy not us.
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u/317PEB Jul 11 '25
I regularly tell people they are free to go the ER but I am not getting them an Ambulance. We also now have social workers at our disposal, they are worth their weight in gold
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u/HanjobSolo69 Recliner Operator Jul 11 '25
I never got in trouble but I had a Captain give me a talk about "professionalism" because I was passive aggressive with a family that had 3 cars in the driveway and able bodied people that could have driven grandpa to the hospital at anytime but decided to call at 10pm
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u/317PEB Jul 11 '25
Imagine the dude with hanjobsolo69 as a user name getting talked to about professionalism.
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u/rogersrangers55 Jul 11 '25
No one with any authority seems to understand that the word no doesn’t have to be mean. It can be a simple this isn’t appropriate because xyZ. We’re professionals not assholes.
I even argue that requiring me to head to toe assess these people to ensure that no is a safe choice makes me a better medic then loading them up and transporting assuming it’s all bullshit
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u/317PEB Jul 11 '25
I tell people regularly they can go tot the ER but I am not getting them an Ambulance. Also we have social workers on call who are worth their weight in gold
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u/Careful_Reason_9992 Jul 11 '25
It never ceases to amaze me the dumb shit that people will call an ambulance for these days. I miss the days when people were tough.
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u/HalliganHooligan FF/EMT Jul 11 '25
Thank the brass across the nation that has placed departments’ call volume as a metric for value.
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u/LikeAPhoenixFromAZ Jul 11 '25
Most instructors and third party training organizations are just bullshitters who talk a good game and only MMQB every other agency including their own without providing their own game plan. They don’t really give you any quality instruction. They just teach because they have the credentials of being a Lt or Captain with some big agency and want to make money doing any easy gig.
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u/Launch_Rockface Jul 11 '25
Agree, It seems that firefighters love to sell shit to eachother and that really shows with the endless number of training companies who keep coming out.
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u/LikeAPhoenixFromAZ Jul 11 '25
And they all teach edgy stuff. I’m making this up but they’ll hook you telling you something like, “Why is your department still using irons for forcible entry?” or “Deuce and half should be the only handline on an engine. Everything else is inferior.”
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u/theopinionexpress Jul 11 '25
True. A lot of edgelords pushing their edgy hot take. Giving some half-baked motivational speech.
If I’m going to a class I want hard skills. I don’t want to waste my time.
I’m a company officer myself and I try to cut through all the fluff as much as possible and get directly to what we need to do when I conduct some company training. Most of the things we do can be done a hundred different ways. I like to crowdsource our techniques with my crew. I’ll offer up how I do something (how I used to pump, or force a door, pull a line, search) and between the 4 of us I’d like to come to a consensus on the best way for us for whatever task were trying to do. I believe in empowering and trusting your people, working as a team. As a junior ff, this was unheard of on my department and STILL IS.
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u/teddyswolsevelt1 Career Jul 11 '25
Being “first due or die” has and will continue to get people hurt or killed until officers start getting suspended for reckless behavior. If you’re the 4th due engine assigned water supply, there’s no reason you should be on 2 wheels when you pull on scene trying to stretch past the 1st due company. Do your job.
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u/reellifesmartass Jul 11 '25
I can speak firsthand about the dangers of this. I ended up lighter in the wallet and lost everything but my job because of the "first due or die" mindset. I've got my rank back, and now, I don't care if it's an orphanage on fire (funny enough, there is one in my current district), if we dont make it there we're beat anyways.
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u/teddyswolsevelt1 Career Jul 11 '25
We had a company hit someone crossing in a crosswalk. Want to hear the kicker? They weren’t even on the box. Explain that one.
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u/reellifesmartass Jul 11 '25
Fucking hell, that's awful. The only reason I wasn't prosecuted, much less still have a job, is because no one was hurt. The only reason I can come up with as to why no one was hurt is the Lord watching out for everyone in the car.
I still get nauseous when I have to drive that particular engine.
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u/FrostyHoneyBun Industrial FF/EMT Jul 11 '25
If you don’t mind me asking, and if you do you do not have to answer, but what happened?
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u/reellifesmartass Jul 11 '25
I was responding to my first box alarm as an engineer, and I blew a red light and t-boned a car. Like I said below, it's only by the grace of God that no one was hurt.
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u/NoFilm6512 Jul 11 '25
I don't think that's a widely unpopular opinion, as much as it is overlooked by the 18-24 age group. But yes, there is a time and place to be a cowboy, pulling up 4th due when the fire is already knocked isn't it.
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u/ButtSexington3rd Jul 11 '25
I work for an aggressive competitive department. Once the trucks are on scene and positions are established, cut the crap. It's the department vs the fire, not your precious company. Imagine your mom's house catches fire, and afterwards you hear some lunks complaining about how so and so "stole your job". Also if I see any pics of you cheesing in my mom's burnt out kitchen I'm putting you on blast. Act like an adult.
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u/Jumpy_Secretary_1517 Jul 11 '25
I’m so far the other direction on this. If my rig is beat to the fire or someone snakes the nozzle from me while I’m forcing a door or something I couldn’t give a single fuck. I’ll do a different job. It’s all the same to me; I’m just trying to be effective, clean up, and go home.
But yea, my department does this shit too
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u/Strict-Canary-4175 Jul 11 '25
This is definitely the attitude I’m aiming for now and trying to cultivate. I do want to be first. It would still bother me if we got beat (within reason). But you’re right, as long as the job gets done, and done well, we should really stop centering ourselves/our companies.
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u/Jumpy_Secretary_1517 Jul 11 '25
For sure. Certain crews will also get kind of a high-fivey attitude after too and that looks soooooo bad to the public, especially the homeowner.
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u/Strict-Canary-4175 Jul 11 '25
We have that problem too. It’s gotten a little better in recent years, but…. I hear ya.
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u/Enfield_Operator Jul 11 '25
Probably a volly problem but it’s even worse when it’s within your own company. Nobody should be too good to ride in the back or pissed that the first out truck didn’t wait 5 more minutes for them to show up.
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u/Imaginary-Anybody542 Jul 11 '25
Promotions should be based on merit and skill not memorizing a book some guy wrote 20 years ago
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u/ThePhilJackson5 Jul 11 '25
Although using "merit" without any sort of rubric leads to cronyism. Which is my dept
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u/Green_Statement_8878 Jul 11 '25
The downside to pure merit is backstabbing buddy fuckers that everyone hates who test well end up as your leadership.
I’ve always thought there should be a line vote on the promotions. If you get more than a 10% blackball rate, you’re off the list.
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u/Imaginary-Anybody542 Jul 11 '25
That is definitely a concern but there are ways to objectively measure merit.
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u/SmokeEater1375 Northeast - FF/P , career and call/vol Jul 11 '25
Although newer, you mean you don’t like the book endorsed by the NFPA on Engine company operations that just has tons of safety and paragraphs full of buzzwords? Oh and nothing but repetitive and ambiguous explanations of firefighting and conditions to the point where it might actually hinder a young guys decision-making because it makes no fucking sense?
Oh and that Engine company book is written by a retired truck captain…got it.
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u/xts2500 Jul 11 '25
The worse we do, the more the public is impressed.
Completely fuck up a room and contents fire and now it's ventilated out the roof? The public goes "wow those guys are really risking their lives!"
Completely fuck up a pin job and it takes 30 mins to extricate a patient when it should have taken 10? The public goes "wow that must be a really bad crash!"
Department full of poorly trained shitheads has to mutual aid three other departments for a simple house fire? "Wow that must have been a really bad call look at all those departments!"
I'm convinced firefighting is the only job that exists where the worse we do on scene the more the public is impressed. Some departments (mostly volunteers) take advantage of this, sometimes without even realizing it. I've seen sooo many social media posts from departments who go on and on about how hard a house fire was, or how bad an MVA was, and I'm looking at the pictures thinking damn boys you should have had that wrapped up in under an hour.
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u/rawkguitar Jul 11 '25
This is exactly correct. I’ve pointed this out to my guys a bunch of times.
Burn down a large building in the center of town, everyone pats us on the back.
Knock out a room and contents in 12 seconds so you can’t even see smoke damage from The outside? Nobody even notices (except them homeowner, of course)
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u/SmokeEater1375 Northeast - FF/P , career and call/vol Jul 11 '25
Due to being a smaller town and two engine companies that can get to either end in less than 10 minutes, I very much resemble all this.
I’ve seen more can jobs and one line stretched bullshit fires in 4 years than I ever did volunteering for 10 years. For our size we actually go to a decent amount of “fires” we’re just pretty good at not letting them get too far so it’s boring. I get bummed it wasn’t a good fire but then I quickly realize, that’s the good thing lol.
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u/superspeck Jul 11 '25
I work in tech and volunteer FF. Tech has the same issues. The “heroes!” are the ones who get mentioned at the quarterly all-hands and get the stock option rewards. Meanwhile, the man or woman who made sure no one needed to be a hero goes unrewarded and is possibly demoted or laid off because they can’t point to anything except steady improvement in everything around them.
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u/Indiancockburn Jul 11 '25
Quit making the job more complicated than it has to be. The extra bullshit is killing the fire service.
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u/HalliganHooligan FF/EMT Jul 11 '25
I swear people complicate shit just to make themselves feel important.
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u/flipvba11er Jul 11 '25
It’s a place of work at the end of the day. Don’t make it your whole personality
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u/Jumpy_Secretary_1517 Jul 11 '25
If you don’t enjoy EMS and accept it as the majority of our job you should not pursue career firefighting. The job has changed; evolve or leave.
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u/HalliganHooligan FF/EMT Jul 11 '25
Fire should have never moved to transport services.
EMS should absolutely be its own third service, and a department’s value shouldn’t solely be based on call volume.
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u/18SmallDogsOnAHorse Do Your Job Jul 11 '25
It's a job, do it well when you're here and shut the fuck up about it when you're not.
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u/Fireguy9641 VOL FF/EMT Jul 11 '25
It's really 30 seconds of pleasure and 3 hours of annoyance. When you think about all the work that's involved in cleaning up an engine after a scene, it's like there has to be a better way to do this. We have problems where officers want to wait and confirm a fire before dropping hose because of the work involved in repacking supply line and attack lines. There has to be a better way.
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u/howawsm Jul 11 '25
That’s laziness from those officers.
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u/silly-tomato-taken Career Firefighter Jul 11 '25
Exactly, pulling a line to a random house even if there's no fire is a good set. We get used to pulling to the same practice target. Good opportunity to switch it up.
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u/thorscope Jul 11 '25
I’m good with pulling a line on every report of fire, but idk if I’m in favor of laying in.
Our engines carry 1000gal and if there’s not smoke visible on approach, there’s virtually no chance we blow through 1000gal before 2nd due gets there
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u/Fireguy9641 VOL FF/EMT Jul 11 '25
My opinion is that we need to be looking at better ways to do it, like putting our lines on reels vs flat loads. It might not look as nice, but it could be deployed and recovered in a fraction of the time.
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u/silly-tomato-taken Career Firefighter Jul 11 '25
recovered in a fraction of the time.
Very few departments are busy enough for this to really be an issue.
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u/howawsm Jul 11 '25
Depending on what rigs you can count on joining the response, tank water is a great option considering how little water it actually takes to knock a room and contents.
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u/HanjobSolo69 Recliner Operator Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
It's really 30 seconds of pleasure and 3 hours of annoyance.
reminds me of my sex life...
But I agree, I think fires are a huge pain in the ass and really its the cleanup that's the worst part. I actually agree with those officers, nothing I hate more than dropping hose for no fucking reason.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 Jul 11 '25
Taking a hydrate, and closing a business down for a full walkthrough is a great way to cut down on automatic alarms.
They get the hint.
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u/Drunk_PI Jul 11 '25
Some thoughts from personal experiences and anecdotes from fellow firefighters:
- I don't have an issue with Euro helmets or even European-style fire trucks, provided the trucks make sense for the area they serve.
- Bike lanes don't block fire trucks. Motorists who don't make way or block hydrants do. Sometimes they crash into firetrucks.
- I like the color red. I also like being unique. I'm cool with different colored fire trucks. Not everything needs to be red.
- We have to be more reasonably proactive and stop letting a combination of toxic pride and adherence to tradition, complacency, and even jurisdictional borders impact our ability to protect the public. Sometimes we have to look at why we've done something a certain way, ask how it's still relevant today, potential dangers if unaddressed, and if it serves as a benefit to the public.
- I love you guys and I like hanging out with you during personal time on shift but sometimes I just want some me time rather than smoke a copious amount of cigars jerking off to volly jolly fire dept montages with the same fucking song in each video.
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u/bonafidsrubber Jul 11 '25
When you get a probie, he needs to learn a LOT. Stressing the fuck out of him by being the biggest asshole you can get away with being because you don’t want to do the work to train him and your wife and children hate you is not going to be conducive at all to him learning it all as quickly as possible. It’s just going to make him have a lot of resentment when it’s all over and you’re going to have to hope you can somehow work through that. It’s going to make it so that he hates the thought of having to go back to work each shift.
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u/Philkensebban7 Jul 12 '25
I'm glad I never had to experience this. In Australia our culture is to welcome new people in. We want them to be a part of the crew so we do our best to make them feel included. They still get duties that the rest don't wanna do like filling out the daily book but otherwise we bring them in, answer any questions and give them advice to be effective and safe.
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u/darthgayder126 Jul 11 '25
That this is just a job like anywhere else and we aren’t special. You don’t have to live and breathe it 24/7/365.
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u/djakeca Jul 11 '25
You never hear commercial fishermen,roofers or loggers talk about their jobs the way you do 75% of the firemen you’ll meet.
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u/BrianKindly 200 years of tradition, unimpeded by progress Jul 11 '25
I mean, it's objectively a pretty unique job with a lot of responsibility and danger. But to the second part, truuuuueeee, turn it off when ya go home, whackers!
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u/AuzRoxUrSox Jul 11 '25
Strongly agree. I’ve known too many people that made their job their entire existence. They were always the worst people to work alongside, and spending time outside of work with. Be humble. It’s just a job.
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u/ComfortableBig8676 Jul 11 '25
The culture has become dogshit
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u/Resident-Incident679 FF Jul 11 '25
Culture of a firehouse has to be fought for and gate kept. Once you lose it my god is it hard to get back. One guy can sour a company and house.
But it’s a constant uphill battle to keep the culture of this job.
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u/AuzRoxUrSox Jul 11 '25
I would have agreed with you while working at my previous department, but I disagree now that I’m with my current department. It has an AMAZING culture and I couldn’t be happier to find a place that I’m happy to retire from.
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u/flywhatever101 Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
Raining down hatred on some of our patients and some of our jobs. It gets casually thrown around and I get it that many of our jobs are in fact stupid and burnout is a true and real thing but I still fundamentally disagree w hating on pts and those we are called upon to rescue.
I dislike the way some people hated on others and I know it’s even worse now. (I’m now retired) but I treated every pt and every job w respect. Many at work for both medics n fire love to hate the gays especially. I just fundamentally disagree. My medic school was huge on only two main fundamentals: we treat each and every job w respect even if we personally disagree w an aspect or aspects of their lifestyle bc we get paid to treat them w respect and we strive continuously for technical excellence.
And one last thought: my own experience was that some of those people that got hated on had been hugely abused/raped for YEARS. I got tired and sad and angry and pissed off too but I always worked super hard to not let my own emotions get in the way of doing outstanding work for whatever job we were called to.
And yes we are/were called for way way too much bs that should have driven themselves to urgent care..but still doesn’t excuse shitty care and shitty TX for me or my coworkers.
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u/tarnado20 Jul 11 '25
Nobody cares that you work at the busiest house.
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u/Launch_Rockface Jul 11 '25
We really don’t. Good for you for running 5x’s the calls that you didn’t want to run anyway.
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u/Easy_Professor3851 Jul 11 '25
I am not stealing from you or being selfish by eating my own shit and only paying for my own shit. If you wanna eat brats, tots, and pizza every goddamn day, that's on you.
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u/teddyswolsevelt1 Career Jul 11 '25
you… eat your own shit?
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u/bring_back_3rd FF/ Medic Jul 11 '25
At least he's not eating other people's shit. Now THAT would be weird.
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u/SanJOahu84 Jul 11 '25
You guys don't take turns cooking?
Chef gets to cook whatever they want around here.
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u/HanjobSolo69 Recliner Operator Jul 11 '25
Im also THAT guy on my shift. I bring and eat my own food 90% of the time.
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u/staresinamerican Jul 11 '25
If your dept provides EMS you should be putting more training and effort into it, not ohh hey let’s throw the new guy on the bus till someone newer comes along or our current always on the engine/ladder/quint click breaks and they throw the guy a bone. Treat your medics and EMTs the same as your firefighters, pay them same as well.
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u/OpiateAlligator Senior Rookie Jul 11 '25
Work life balance is important until no-one signs up for overtime and they have to shut down rigs.
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u/Ok_Buddy_9087 Edit to create your own flair Jul 11 '25
Is shutting rigs down better than mandatory overtime? Discuss amongst yourselves.
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u/BetCommercial286 Jul 11 '25
That’s fine maybe something important burns down or someone dies and we get an impetus to get better staffing and pay. I’m off the clock and drunk if anyone asks
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u/yourname92 Jul 11 '25
Just because we are firefighters doesn't mean that we should hope there's a fire. A fire means someone's life, family, home, dreams are possibly and most likely killed. We shouldn't hope for someone else's bad fortune.
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u/Famous-Response5924 Jul 11 '25
Hazing new employees is BS and should not be tolerated or accepted. New people should be mentored and coached and welcomed into the department and job. Just because someone was shitty to you when you started 20 years ago doesn’t give you the right to be shitty to someone else.
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u/xxElevationXX Jul 11 '25
I hate the summer heat and honestly dread putting on my gear when its damn near 100 degrees and humid. One of my least favorite parts of the job
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u/Green_Statement_8878 Jul 11 '25
We take customer service way too seriously and need to start telling people no more.
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u/ConsciousReward2967 Jul 11 '25
I’ve said that with my local vfd, a decent sized assisted living complex has 2-8 calls a day for lift assist, it’s 4-8k a month to live there. They can afford trained staff. They need to bill that place a shit load every time they arrive on scene
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u/thechalupamaster Jul 11 '25
Hydrants are fun and a good way to learn territory.
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u/ButtSexington3rd Jul 11 '25
I remember my ladder company did hydrant inspections one night. Our senior guy was crying his ass off, the rest of us (who hadn't messed with hydrants since the academy) were having a great time. We got slurpees and had a great stroll around the neighborhood.
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u/throwingutah Jul 11 '25
I used to gripe when we did our own hydrant maintenance, but once we stopped, I realized that it's a really good way to learn them and we have a vested interest in making sure they work. I had a DPU person tell me it didn't matter if a hydrant was OOS because there's another one within 500 feet.
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u/kiiyyuul Career Officer Jul 11 '25
Third service EMS generally provides much better EMS than we do (which should embarrass us).
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u/reckless_wiggler Jul 11 '25
We need to lighten up on the gossip and shit talking. I think there are better ways of blowing off steam than ragging on our brothers. It kills morale.
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u/Cappuccino_Crunch Jul 12 '25
All of these try hards and self motivational guys are ruining the fire service. Most people want to go home after their shift physically and mentally. The way these guys make the fire service their whole personality and lifestyle prevent that from happening. Then they get into admin positions and try to shove that culture down everyone's throat.
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u/VT911Saluki Jul 11 '25
smoothbore nozzles are at this point a fad and a holdover from when that was the only nozzle made.
Repetitive studies have shown a straight-stream to be consistently better than a smoothbore at absorbing heat from a fire.
plus, there is way more versatility at your fingertips than what is nothing more than a pipe with a hole.
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u/Agreeable-Emu886 Jul 11 '25
Seniority is the most overvalued thing in the fire service.
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u/Classic-Temporary635 Jul 11 '25
“I’ve been here 20 years! Wipe my ass and scrub my shit and piss off the toilets because I refuse to live a clean lifestyle and would rather make another grown ass man clean my feces off the toilet bowl because he’s been here less! If he doesn’t clean it everybody else can sit on the seat with piss on it!”Then they wonder why people don’t like working with them. Also, couldn’t give two fucks about your “seniority” if you don’t spread your knowledge and mentor young guys. If all you do is sit on your ass and not do shit, I couldn’t care less if you’ve “been there done that”. You’re not teaching me anything nor making your coworkers better which is selfish. It’s usually always senior guys who say “the brotherhood is dead!”.. well, you probably feel that way because you’re the source of the issue. Ask the young guys to train, be the one to try and form relationships with them. Young guys, like myself, are taught to shut the fuck up and go find something to do, so start a conversation with us. Get to know us. Ask us what we wanna work on. It’s hypocritical to sit there and belittle a new guy for not being very good at something when you don’t get your ass out of the recliner and teach them. I get being annoyed with people when you teach them things time and time again and they still don’t retain shit, but it’s outright disgusting and humiliating to young guys when the senior members just embarrass them and talk shit to em all shift. I’ll never be that guy cuz I had to work a shift like that and it was humiliating, embarrassing, and the worst part of all…fuckin boring as fuck.
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u/Peaches0k Texas FF/EMT/HazMat Tech Jul 11 '25
When the new guys on all 3 shifts take turns cleaning the same tools cause there isn’t fuck else to do while everyone else naps
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u/Classic-Temporary635 Jul 11 '25
I’m all for naps…where I work more times than not we’re up 80-90% of the night so a good nap after lunch should be fine….but wait a minute we’ve got chiefs all over the fuckin country (mine included) that have a set policy stating “no down time before (insert time)”. Which is bullshit and every chief knows it but weak chiefs are influenced into thinking “my firefighters need to earn their pay! They can’t nap all day! We’re gonna have a 9-5 schedule!”. This isn’t a 9-5 job, but chiefs that promote from shift work into 9-5 salary work think it’s a good idea to make rank and file schedules just like theirs which is bullshit. Personally I like to work out and train later in the day when it cools down (4pm-6pm) and it works great. I rarely take naps because the policy states no down time before 4pm but when he’s not there I could give a fuck and I will rest because I know I’m gonna fuck my sleep up for at least the next 48 hours so might as well try to make up for it during the middle of the day. I have always found 99% of chiefs that don’t work for big cities and work for small urban/rural departments were usually shit firemen who promoted up the ranks with good examples scores and having a long, wet and wide mouth and throat with bruises on their knees, if you know what I mean…and they all have the same thing in common…they love computers. Every good firemen I’ve met has hated computers and tech…target solutions can kiss my ass. I get more out of a gnarly extrication training in the hot ass son standing up and holding heavy ass tools all day than I do going online from the comfort of a recliner. Sorry I went on a rant…I’m a very up-beat and positive dude at the firehouse who loves the job and 90% of my coworkers and feel as though I’m well liked even if I’m not that experienced (only a couple years on but 3rd gen fireman whose grandfather and father were with big city dept)…but for the most part I feel I’m respected. The bullshit chores are a pain in the asshole too… one lieutenant I know makes us clean the toilets the morning we get to work AND before we leave work (what the fuck) just bullshit like that…stuff like cleaning ladders that haven’t been used in a couple of weeks lol that’s a funny one that I haven’t ever done…shit like that. All of that bullshit comes from a chief who feels as though it’s a crime to take advantage of the best part of the job…which besides fires is the ability to chill and watch movies with the boys with good food while getting paid to not really do any type of “work” when we’re not running calls. A good chief allows their guys to chill and nap when they want and need. A down-to-earth chief also knows almost all of us work side jobs either because the schedule allows or we just need/want more money…so the extra rest and fun time helps.
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u/Imaginary-Ganache-59 Medic who very occasionally wears bunker pants Jul 11 '25
Allowing shithead behavior in the station “because they’ve always been that way”. If I cook you dinner you better be picking up your fucking plate or so help me God I’ll stay after my shift ends to make sure it ends up in your bedding, that and pissing on the floor like a poorly trained dog. I get it, I’m Irish too but brother, sit to piss if you’re gonna miss that badly.
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u/CallMeCaptainChaos Career Lt/Paramedic Jul 11 '25
I know there are departments who are exceptions to this, but those departments who run transports really need to remind themselves they are EMS agencies that will also run fire calls. If EMS calls are >75% of your call volume, you are a medical agency.
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u/Zerbo Southern California FF/PM Jul 11 '25
The availability of overtime does not give you free rein to live outside your means. If that OT ever dries up, or you get injured and go on light duty, or the city plays dirty with contract negotiations, you're stuck with that payment for the brand new Tacoma, the boat payment, the ATVs, the slip fees, the trailer storage, the mortgage for the house that was bigger than you needed, etc. Plan your life around the money you KNOW you'll bring in month to month, not your overtime potential.
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u/foley214 Jul 12 '25
Not necessarily unpopular but uncommon. I refuse most overtime. I take maybe 3 12 hour shifts a year. My kids come first. Sooner than I realize they won’t want to spend as much time with me, I can work OT then. I won’t get to the end of my life and wish I worked more.
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u/Supertom911 Jul 11 '25
Women still being treated poorly and being a very low percentage of firefighters overall.
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u/superspeck Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
+++1
Before I was in fire, women were three quarters of my volunteer SAR unit, had the harder to handle dogs, and had all the leadership positions, while also being career in the state task force and whatever the current title is for someone deputized as a sheriff but not a career sheriff deputy plus they had current EMT cards without a full time EMT job. In actual fire departments it’s the opposite, and the volunteer women were better at their jobs than the career men.
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u/Launch_Rockface Jul 11 '25
I think we take everything to the extreem. I apprecate the focus on mental health in the fire service and think its needed. Howeve, I think we are pushing too hard on it now and its making people think they have problems when they really don’t.
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u/Ok_Buddy_9087 Edit to create your own flair Jul 11 '25
Counterpoint: I think a lot more of them have problems than we realize. Guys in my area are offing themselves with no documented history of anything
Hot take: a LOT of them, especially the Zoomers, are showing up with those problems.
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u/Launch_Rockface Jul 11 '25
I don’t think you’re wrong, I have seen people come in the door that are almost to the point of rocking in a corner after their first rough call.
I think (many) people in general have been exposed to less hardship in their lives, especially those under 30. Without that they never had the ability to develop any coping or resiliency skills. So now things that were maybe as annoying as a buzzing mosquito to older generations is a tragic PTSD creating event for younger people.
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u/CitricCrane12 Jul 11 '25
This is mine because my department does 12s instead of 24s. If you don't cook together the young guy shouldn't have to touch your dishes. Cleam them yourself. The young guy is not your maid we are all adults. Also, if you're paid more you should be doing more work (not sure if this is unpopular or just me ranting).
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u/Complete-Bass-9431 Jul 11 '25
There are very few good leaders, and even less opportunities to become a good leader. Overall the fire department suffers from effectice and useful Frontline leaders.
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u/Famous-Response5924 Jul 11 '25
Inspectors know more about the area, the buildings and building features like FDIC’s, alarm panels, sprinkler systems etc than almost every operations person does. They aren’t completely useless.
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u/CrumbGuzzler5000 Jul 11 '25
- Every station (unless you’re tucked into a weird border station) runs the same amount of real calls. The rest is just BS that you wade through to get to the good calls. The sleepless stations where you never stop only brings quality experience to new guys who don’t know how to talk to people yet. The people who stay in the busy houses for years because their egos make them think that being at a busy house is the only way are just doing damage to themselves.
- Keeping your pump in pressure mode is stupid unless your bread and butter fires are high rise fires.
- I don’t think there is a good reason to ever put people on a lightweight construction roof. Ever. You can make good arguments for it, but the counter argument is always more logical.
- No matter how dance the heavy rescue guys want to get, a figure 8 on a bite is fine. Just do that. It’s fine.
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u/Vprbite I Lift Assist What You Fear Jul 11 '25
We talk about integrity and honor so much. Maybe we should spend more effort actually behaving that way instead of just talking about it.
Don't get me wrong, there's good people in the fire service. But there's plenty who will stab you in the back to make themselves look good instead of just being better themselves
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u/Tccrdj Jul 11 '25
Making the new people do all the work is more than just them “proving themselves”. It’s mostly justifying the laziness of the more senior people. We have a probie coming to shift soon and people can’t wait to not have to clean anymore. As if the 20 mins out of our day to clean the station is such a giant inconvenience. Not only that, but the new people are already so busy and stressed that they end up half assing the cleaning, making the station more disgusting than it already is.
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u/PotentialReach6549 Jul 12 '25
Guys think their shit don't stink
Just because you're in a major city you're somebody
That battered wife syndrome where you got abused and fucked up the ass by the fire service and now you do that shit to candidates and the excuse is "that's how it is"
How everybody thinks their gods gift to the fire service
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u/rancidmartian Jul 12 '25
HIGHLY unpopular personal opinion: You don’t have the right of way, you’re requesting it from the public. I use this when responding, people are too distracted these days. Don’t EVER assume they see or hear you.
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u/PuzzleheadedDingo422 Jul 11 '25
You dont need to take a million dollar ladder/engine/squad to an ems call.
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u/BriGuy550 Jul 11 '25
The EMS crew appreciates the extra help when they have to move a 400lbs patient or lots of stairs are involved or it’s a seriously sick patient, or we need two people in the back with the patient. We run an engine on almost every EMS call and I’m glad we do.
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Jul 11 '25
We are getting paid enough. We are public servants. We serve the public, the public doesn’t serve us. If you are in it for the money, you are in it for the wrong reasons.
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u/Feuerwehrmann54 Jul 11 '25
We find the negative in everything until a 48/96 is mentioned. You’re not allowed to have a negative opinion about it.
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u/PM-BOOBS-AND-MEMES Jul 11 '25
Volly Capt here.
Half of my dept leadership is retired career, (1 active still) and the other half volunteer or work part time fire.
The expectations of participation, and gruffness of retired career folks who are burnt out has done more damage and drove away more members of my agency than anything else.
I'm NOT advocating that we not train and be at a lower standard, I'm referring to the attitude towards a member who's been absent, dealing with family, life , etc ... When they try and come back and are ridiculed publicly by an officer it's no wonder the rest of the folks in the room don't want to come to training with that chief anymore.
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u/lump532 Career Company Officer and Paramedic Jul 11 '25
We use lights and sirens too much. We should not assume everything is a fire until proven otherwise statistics agree.
Multiple calls, multiple detectors,sure. Single alarm at an empty commercial building at 2am? Let’s just drive over and have a look. No need to put on turnouts and drive like lives are at stake.
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u/WorkingFire437 Jul 11 '25
Sense of entitlement for instant gratification/credibility from millennials and GenZ is real.
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u/Calm_Ad_8538 Jul 12 '25
Any brand new pumper of any kind (tankers, wildland rigs, and quints are included) that is built without a foam system is already out of date, and any nonpumper unit that is built brand new without some sort of fire suppression capability outside of a couple of cans and extinguishers (except for ambulances and command/support vehicles) could also be outdated.
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u/BobBret Jul 12 '25
Piqued my curiosity. Why does a pumper need foam to be considered up to date?
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u/Calm_Ad_8538 Jul 13 '25
Some of the building materials used in buildings, especially type 5 structures, a lot of the clothing worn today, the furniture in a lot of places, and other miscellaneous items are either petroleum based or have petroleum based components, and a good portion of which is either water-resistant or waterproof, which means using straight water for these fires isn't efficient and causes a lot more polluted runoff than using a finished foam product. Also a finished foam product, being water-based, does also does some cooling, it also smothers the fire, and if it sticks to the surface of whatever may have been burning, then the fuel would be less likely to ignite. Finally, having a foam system is just handy to have available if needed, and could be set up a little bit quicker than having buckets of foam and a separate foam eductor. I like cafs in particular, but I understand those systems can be complicated, especially older model systems. This is based on my opinion, which is based off of some of my training I've received, and mostly off of some of the research I've did, so if I'm factually wrong about something, or if I'm missing something important, please let me know. Again this is my unpopular opinion.
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u/BobBret Jul 13 '25
Interesting take. I once rejected sales pitches for Class A foam because I felt that the promised performance improvement was much too small to justify adding any cost or complexity to our operations. Almost without exception, structure fires that got away from us did so because burning fuel surfaces were shielded from water application. Unless a proposed change could help us overcome shielding, it was probably solving the wrong problem. Synthetics had been common for forty years and we knew that they readily yield to fuel-surface cooling.
I didn’t consider the runoff issue though. I can imagine some scenario sets where it would be important.
Conventional wisdom at the time was that, at a minimum, one third of a department’s pumps should have Class B foam capabilities, with more foam-capable pumps added for any special hazards in the area. In practice, many departments (including us) had foam capabilities on every pump. The downsides were reliability issues and overhead (cost, maintenance, training).
Thanks for explaining.
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u/HanjobSolo69 Recliner Operator Jul 11 '25
Fires are the worst part of the job (besides seeing death). They are chaotic, hot, hard work, dirty, take forever and someone just lost their house. Plus the cleanup is maybe even worse. Packing up all the dirty hose and washing your gear and having to shower after. No thanks.
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u/BriGuy550 Jul 11 '25
Right? Fighting them is fun for maybe 10 minutes then it’s a slog. I’d rather run EMS calls all day or go to a bad MVA.
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u/BlutoS7 Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 12 '25
1.Its not the best job in the world. We all self gaslight ourselves into believing that. Its just a job and its a job that actually kind of sucks a mass majority of the time.
We over complicate the blue collar side of this. Like working jobs are blue collar “do work” that 99% of it goon work but the fat, out of shape, nerd type has now taught the 1% of science to people and have really made people over think all of This.
The blue collar side mentality and culture needs to make a comeback. The fire service is physically weak, out of shape and to sensitive now.
Edit-4. The fire service is labeled a “paramilitary” organization and in all reality its actually a majority of “i almost joined the military” and wanna be turbo moto people but not moto enough to actually join
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u/BetCommercial286 Jul 11 '25
I don’t think this is unpopular but fire shouldn’t be involved in EMS. I’d rather be the only paramedic on scene 95% and ask for help if I need it.
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u/ConnorK5 NC Jul 11 '25
The actual crossover of people who want to fight fire and people who want to do paramedic skills are not many. Like both ways IMO. I see it here in my state where almost every FD does not do transports or provide ALS care. Only BLS first responders care. And if you made every medic become a firefighter you'd lose 90% of them and if you made every firefighter become a medic you'd lose 90% of them too. So it works better this way. The pay is worse but the patient care and interest in the job is much better on both fronts.
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u/mysterychongo Jul 11 '25
Probably among the most unpopular opinions one can have in the fire service: A union firefighter should never vote for billionaire presidents who are a fan of union-busting. The fire service would not enjoy the benefits of our shift schedules, among many other benefits, had we not fought for better working conditions and living wages through collective action and the union.
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u/Famous-Response5924 Jul 11 '25
Only the first in unit should be running emergency traffic. Everyone else should be routine and following all traffic laws. First in unit can upgrade everyone else if needed. Would save wear and tear on vehicles, reduce accidents and lower stress levels going to calls.
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u/GFSoylentgreen Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
The traditional issued helmets suck. They’re bulky, heavy, top heavy, unstable, uncomfortable, and overly ornamental.
The leather versions are much lighter, but ridiculously expensive.
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u/paddy_wagoneer Jul 11 '25
Finding time for loved ones isn’t nearly as tough as they make it seem. Me and my girlfriend do just fine, although i will admit it’s a bit challenging with me and my wife