A question posted recently on Quora asked, “What qualities should a firefighter candidate have?” Jon Sigurdson, a firefighter-paramedic, gave his opinion on the topic below. Check it out and add your own thoughts in the comments.
Being a firefighter is not just some job you decide to go try. It’s a calling.
It’s an emotionally tough job in many ways that you will never know about until you’ve done it. Everyone sees the sweaty firefighters after a fire in the summer and think, “Wow, those guys really had it tough today!” What the public doesn’t see is the effect of the firefighter who responded to a dead child who was run over by a car and it reminds them of their own child.
Some people sign up because of the time off, the benefits of a municipal job and a pension at the end of a specified time. These are all great things and it is definitely a reward for your service to the community where you work. But what qualities should a candidate have?
- Physical fitness.
- Being able to follow orders.
- Situational awareness can save your life.
- Fear of heights and claustrophobia is a deal breaker. Period.
- An individual who can be spatially oriented and can use their intelligence to figure something out.
- A people person and not afraid to communicate with the public.
- Able to get along with others and flexible with things that you don’t normally do.
- Compassion, empathy, and caring is good, but not detrimental.
With that being said, people from all walks of life become firefighters. They generally come from the community that they serve.
Being a firefighter is a job that is never the same. Every time the alarm goes off, you will respond to a different problem that needs to mitigated and you need to figure the safest way to fix it in the quickest amount of time possible.
For me, that’s what made the job incredibly exciting. The most important quality you can have is passion for the job and willingness to learn.
Being afraid of something has nothing to do with what a firefighter does. Every firefighter faces fear, if they don’t, they’ll do something stupid and end up dead. Fear heightens your senses, it gives you energy, it keeps you sharp. Your training from the academy and the guidance from your officers and seasoned firefighters will instill confidence and courage in you.
Being a firefighter enrolls you into a special brotherhood only a few are able to be a part of. I hope this sounds like something that appeals to you.
