Firefighter job duties
Firefighting is a hard and harmful job with the thrill and sweet taste of saving other people’s lives. In Iran, the first fire department was established by the Russians in the city of Tabriz. This job is challenging yet rewarding because saving lives and protecting property is of utmost importance to our community.
In the following, to familiarize yourself with the job of a firefighter, complete information on duties, skills and how to enter the job, requirements, related jobs and the amount of firefighter income is provided:
Firefighter responsibilities include the following:
- Rapid response to fire alarms to regulate and extinguish forest or building fires
- Repair of firefighting equipment and rescue equipment including aerial ladders, axes, fire hoses, etc
- Providing emergency medical services in compliance with established standards
An excellent firefighter is a responsible and courageous professional who is fully trained in dealing with emergencies and enduring difficult situations. Calmness and patience when dealing with problems is one of the most important features. Good communication skills and a caring personality may also be helpful in this regard.
A firefighter must:
- Respond quickly to fire alarms to control and extinguish forest or building fires.
- Repairs related to firefighting and rescue equipment, such as aerial ladders, axes, fire hoses, etc.
- Provide emergency medical services in compliance with established standards.
- Inspects fire or accident scenes to identify causes or uncover significant findings.
- Clean fire scenes by removing debris and burnt items.
- Respond to other emergencies and help those in need.
- Write detailed reports after incidents and refer them to superiors.
- Clean and maintain personal equipment and keep them ready for use.
- Participate in public education programs to help prevent dangerous fire incidents.
Requirements for a firefighter job
- Proven experience as a firefighter
- Knowledge of operation and repair of fire extinguishing equipment and devices
- Knowledge of first aid methods
- Willingness to follow the laws and legal guidelines and firefighting standards at all times
- Excellent physical strength and endurance with the ability to dress and move quickly
- Patient and calm with the ability to work in a team
- Devoted and compassionate
- Having a practical mind and problem solving ability
- Passing firefighting exams (written, physical, mental, etc.)
- High school diploma or higher; A degree in fire science is a plus
- Certification as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) is preferred
Firefighters respond to fires and other incidents in cases that threaten people’s lives and property. Full-time firefighters help protect the public in emergency situations. They respond to a wide variety of calls, not only for fires, but also for car accidents, chemical spills, floods and drowning rescues.
In addition to the above, this job includes the following:
- Using advanced firefighting and rescue equipment.
- Inspection and maintenance of equipment between uses.
- Promoting fire safety through dialogue, counseling and training sessions.
- Building inspection for fire safety and enforcement of safety standards.
- Doing practice exercises.
- Work with police and ambulance service personnel.
- Physical and academic training.
There are two main divisions for a firefighter: full-time professional firefighters and retained firefighters. Aside from training, the remaining firefighters are only on call at the fire station and usually have another full-time job. They are employed in rural areas and must be five minutes away from the fire station (work or life).
24-hour shift work is a standard requirement of this job. The work can be stressful and dangerous, but great job satisfaction comes from providing such a valuable service to the community.
Typical employers of firefighters are employed in such occupations:
The people who are employed in the fire department are firemen at first. Over time, they reach higher positions such as driver, shift deputy, shift commander, station chief, operational deputy and station affairs deputy. If they have a high degree of education, they can become a fire officer, chief fire officer, and head of safety and fire department.
Local authority fire service
Airports and ports
Armed Forces
A small number of industrial organizations such as chemical, nuclear, gas and oil industry organizations
Fire and rescue services have a duty to advertise at insensitive times: look for them on fire service websites and social media. The senior roles of this organization are advertised on specialized industry websites and national press.
Qualification and training is required
You can become a firefighter with or without a degree. You don’t need any special qualifications to join, although health and safety qualifications and specialist management training can help, experience working with emergency services may also be helpful.
Why extracurricular activities help you get hired
Training is an essential part of the job. New firefighters begin with an intensive training course followed by a continuous learning and development program. To be employed, you must meet a standard of fitness and must maintain a standard of physical fitness in the role.
Key skills for firefighters
There are minimum entry requirements for firefighters: for example, be at least 17 and a half years old at the time of application. Other essential characteristics and skills include:
- Good physical fitness
- Self Confidence
- Resilience
- Good communication skills
- Ability to work well under pressure
Jobs related to the job of a firefighter
- Political researcher
- Diplomatic service
- Equal Opportunity Officer
- Transport planner
- Responsible for trade union research
- Energy saving officer
- Director of Civil Service
- Nature Conservation Officer
- youth worker
- Social arts worker
Knowledge, skill and ability
Among the other important things that are needed in this profession and play a significant role in developing a professional firefighter is having the necessary knowledge, skills, and ability to do things in the best possible way, below are some of these things:
Having knowledge of the street and fire protection systems in the area and knowing the first response method.
Having knowledge of first aid
Ability to learn and demonstrate a wide range of firefighting and related duties and procedures.
Ability to work well with others and work as a team member under the supervision of a senior officer or firefighter.
The ability to build a professional, sensitive and patient relationship and interaction with people of all ages and abilities.
Ability to exercise good judgment, flexibility, creativity and sensitivity in response to changing conditions and needs.
Ability to understand and follow written and verbal instructions and commands in English.
Ability to communicate effectively orally and in written correspondence.
Ability to work and relax under stressful conditions.
Ability to read a variety of informational and technical documents, instructions, guidelines and procedures.
Ability to write job related documents and reports with appropriate format, punctuation, spelling and grammar, using all parts of speech.
Ability to achieve and maintain an appropriate level of fitness to perform the essential duties of the job.
working conditions
Ability to be exposed to adverse work conditions such as:
Airborne particles
severe cold (non-weather)
extreme heat (not air)
vapors
High and excellent places
humidity
Moving mechanical parts
out of the air
Poor ventilation
Risk of blood/airborne pathogens
Risk of electric shock
Radiation hazard
Self-contained breathing apparatus
Toxic or caustic chemicals
Different sound levels
shaking
humidity
Working with explosives
work at night
Work while using heavy equipment
physical activities
Essential functions require maintaining physical condition for significant physical activity, such as:
Balancing
rock climbing
Crawl
Bending/squatting
Driving a motor vehicle at high speed
Kneel
Occasionally lifting and maneuvering more than 175 pounds
Heavy equipment repair
Draw
push
Regularly lift or maneuver up to 50 pounds
Running
Sitting
standing
Swimming
Turning the upper and lower body
walking
Income of firefighters in some countries of the world
The average annual income for this job in the US was $45,250 in 2013, and the average annual income for this job in Australia is $67,200 (before tax), and the average annual income for this job for interns in the UK is about 32,000. dollars, for people with valid certificates and degrees up to $43,500, for staff managers up to $48,000 and station managers between $55,500 and $62,000.
The stresses of the firefighter job
One of the stresses of being a firefighter is that there is always the possibility that something will happen that you have no control over. These are the fears that keep a firefighter up at night.
The following text was written by Michael Morse, an American firefighter:
And what is love? We eat like kings, get paid to sleep and watch TV occasionally, have a home away from home, and socialize like everyone else. Our life is as good as anyone can expect.
We proudly display our union decals on our cars and most of us have a few firefighter shirts in our wardrobes. People respect us and we have earned it. We know this and believe in ourselves more, but nothing in our life is absolutely perfect.
In this job, there is always the possibility that something will happen over which we have no control, and it is these fears that keep a firefighter awake at night.
We firefighters have a few secrets that we normally keep to ourselves, including:
1. The weight of responsibility we bear is crushing to our souls.
It is by maintaining the hardships of being away from family and seeing oneself as invincible that a firefighter can work. Believe it or not, we do the firefighting job not for ourselves but for those who depend on us.
Firefighters are always on duty. There is less rest time for us. The mind is never at rest. People need us. There are a million things that can go wrong every second, and firefighters are expected to do it, or if something goes wrong, to be on the scene quickly.
2. We are not born with the knowledge to be a good firefighter.
We have the talent, but that is not enough. It must be nurtured and constantly challenged. There is one word to ensure competence: training.
And the learning never ends. It is constant like breathing. Once a skill is learned, it must be relearned and added to at every available moment. There is always something new to perfect and perfection is elusive. Education is the foundation on which everything else depends. When the real deal comes your way, having the skills to do things built into you through repetition will help.
3. Fear of failure is the biggest unknown fear that every firefighter always carries with him.
We border on pride, commuting through the city as we do when we are in place, responding to emergencies, striving to work with confidence and ultimately earning the glow of public trust. But in the middle of the night, when there is no one but you and the thoughts in your head, things are not so clear. In fact, over a million scenarios are playing out in your head and you question whether you have what it takes to respond.
What happens if the game does not have a good ending?
What would happen if a train that normally runs without regard to the city and its surroundings derails and releases a toxic cloud of chlorine gas and waterless ammonia into space?
What if a child who normally sleeps at night can’t breathe at three in the morning?
What if a scrap metal truck goes around a curve too fast and hits a car full of college kids, trapping them, crushing them. All you can do is watch them bleed to death as the crane that will eventually free them slowly creeps up…
What if the kid decided to hang himself and could have changed his mind at the last second, but you were a second late and it was over?
If the fire is raging and a family of five is burning 3 feet from where you are standing, and you can’t even get an inch closer, and their screams are all that is left of them, what would you do? Can you do anything but put out the fire?
Failure is not an option. There is no “unparalleled effort” in firefighting. There is success and there is failure.
Success is what makes firefighting great. Failure crushes a firefighter’s spirit, robs him of his confidence and destroys his character. This is the biggest unspoken fear that every firefighter carries with him.
4. We live with a job where the risk of getting cancer is very high.
No one wants to die. It is a myth that they say, we want to die so that others may live. What we’re going to do is take ridiculous chances to save people if, and only if, there’s even the slightest chance that we’ll get out alive. None of the firefighters who die in a fire, collapse, accident or explosion do so willingly. To think of anything other than this is an insult to the integrity of life.
A firefighter’s death during a daring rescue is not one where images of a heroic firefighter are glorified on public screens, the firefighter dies alone, in bed, in agony, pain numbed by morphine. Only a few people are with us, those who stayed with us during the fight…
We die of cancer. Things that burn emit toxins that we breathe in long after the fire is out.
Diesel available at the station, which no system is able to capture.
Millions of chemicals that are created when a car burns.
Asbestos we breathe.
The dust that settles in our lungs and on our skin.
5. The things we see in this profession are worse than you can imagine.
While you go to work and you’re feeling good, your mind becomes mundane due to constant work in the face of death, transformation, insanity, and disease. The feeling of torment will always be with you, consciously or unconsciously, it doesn’t matter; What matters is how you handle it.
The toughest among us aren’t that tough, they’re the healthiest. These people are the ones who suffer the most and bravely hide their injuries. They just cope and get through each day as best they can.
Firefighting is more than a way to make a living. This is a way of life. But nothing in life is free.
Even those fortunate enough to have the greatest job in the world know the value of being a firefighter, we protect and serve everyone.
