Skip to comments.

"Stop calling firefighters 'heroes.' " (A cush job most of the time)

Slate ^ | Oct. 31, 03 | Douglas Gantenbein

Posted on by churchillbuff

Stop calling firefighters "heroes." By Douglas Gantenbein Posted Friday, October 31, 2003, at 12:05 PM PT

A cush job, most of the time

When California Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the state's catastrophic wildfires a few days ago, he uttered the phrase that now accompanies any blaze as surely as smoke: "The firefighters are the true heroes."

It's understandable why he said that. As fires go, the California blazes are scary. They are moving incredibly quickly through dried brush and chaparral that practically explode when they ignite, threatening the life of any firefighter nearby. Steven L. Rucker, a 38-year-old firefighter and paramedic for the town of Novato, was killed working to save houses. Elsewhere, thousands of firefighters have worked for hours on end in 95-degree heat, dressed in multiple layers of fire-resistant clothing, sometimes without enough food or water because of the long and shifting supply lines.

Given all that, it may seem churlish to suggest that firefighters might not deserve the lofty pedestal we so insistently place them on. We lionize them, regard them as unsullied by base motivations, see them as paragons of manliness (and very tough womanliness). They're easily our most-admired public servants, and in the public's eye probably outrank just about anyone except the most highly publicized war veterans. But the "hero" label is tossed around a little too often when the subject is firefighting. Here's why:

Continue Article

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firefighting is a cushy job. Firefighters may have the best work schedule in the United States24 hours on, 48 hours off. And those 24 hours are usually not terribly onerous. While a few big-city fire stations may have four, five, six calls, or more during a shift, most aren't nearly that busy, giving firefighters time to give tours to school kids, barbecue hamburgers, wash fire engines, sleep, and pose for "The Firefighters of [Your City Here], 2004" calendars. Indeed, fire officials devote much of their time to figuring out how to cover up the fact they're not getting the hoses out very often. So we have firefighters doing ambulance work, firefighters doing search-and-rescue work, anything but Job No. 1. Meanwhile, the long days off give many firefighters a chance to start second careers. That makes it easy for them to retire after 20 years, take a pension, and start another profession. I've known firefighters who moonlighted as builders, photographers, and attorneys.

Firefighting isn't that dangerous. Of course there are hazards, and about 100 firefighters die each year. But firefighting doesn't make the Department of Labor's 2002 list of the 10 most dangerous jobs in America. Loggers top that one, followed by commercial fishermen in the No. 2 spot, and general-aviation commercial pilots (crop dusters and the like) at No. 3. Firefighting trails truck-driving (No. 10) in its risks. Pizza delivery drivers (No. 5) have more dangerous jobs than firefighters, statistically speaking. And fatalities, when they occur in firefighting, often are due to heart attacks and other lack-of-fitness problems, not fire. In those cases where firefighters die in a blaze, it's almost always because of some unbelievable screw-up in the command chain. It's been well-documented, for instance, that lousy communication was a huge reason why so many firefighters still were in the burning World Trade Center when it imploded, and well after city police and port authority police had been warned by their own commanders of an imminent collapse and cleared out.

Firefighters are adrenalin junkies. I did mountain rescue work for several years and more than once was praised as a "hero." Oh, give me a break. It was fun and exciting. Firefighting is even more of a rush. Sharon Waxman, in an excellent article in the Washington Post, interviewed firefighters in California. Every one was in a complete lather to get to the next hot spot. "It's almost a slugfest to get in there," one told Waxman. This urge to reach the fire is not entirely altruistic. It sure beats washing that damned fire truck again, for one thing. Plus a big fire is thrilling, plain and simple.

Firefighters have excellent propaganda skills. Firefighters play the hero card to its limit. Any time a big-city firefighter is killed on duty, that city will all but shut down a few days later while thousands of firefighters line the streets for a procession. In July 2001, I witnessed the tasteless spectacle of Washington state firefighters staging a massive public display to "honor" four young people killed in a forest fire (one absurd touch: hook-and-ladder rigs extended to form a huge arch over the entrance to the funeral hall). For the families of the four dead firefightersthree of whom were teens trying to make a few bucks for collegethe parade, the solemn speeches, and the quasi-military trappings all were agony. "It's just the firefighters doing their thing," one bystander said to me later with a shrug.

Firefighters are just another interest group. Firefighters use their heroic trappings to play special interest politics brilliantly. It is a heavily unionized occupation. Nothing's wrong with that, but let's not assume they're always acting in anything but their own best interests. In Seattle not long ago a squabble broke out between police and firefighters when both were called to the scene of a capsized dinghy in a lake. The firefighters put a diver in the water, a police officer on the scene ordered him out to make way for a police team, and all hell broke loose (yes, the cops were at fault, too). The dispute wasn't over public safety, it was over who got the glory. New York firefighters, admittedly deep in grief over lost co-workers, exacerbated the challenge of body recovery operations after 9/11 by insisting on elaborate removal procedures for each firefighter uncovered, an insult to others who died there. Not long before that, in Boston, a special commission released a scathing report that detailed a 1,600-member fire department up to its bunker gear in racism, sexism, and homophobia. Since then the department has bitterly resisted reform efforts.

None of this is meant to dispute that firefighters aren't valuable to the communities in which they work. They are. But our society is packed with unheralded heroessmall-town physicians, teachers in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, people who work in dirty, dangerous jobs like coal-mining to support a family. A firefighter plunging into a burning house to retrieve a frightened, smoke-blinded child is a hero. But let's save the encomiums for when they are truly deserved, not when they just show up to do their job.



TOPICS:

Business/Economy

Culture/Society

Editorial

Government

US: California

KEYWORDS:

catholiclist

firefighters

firefighting

heroes

wildfires





To: churchillbuff

So what.. if my house is on fire, I sure as h#ll don't want "journalists" to show up.



To: churchillbuff

I would like to punch the author in the mouth. There are not a lot of life-risking jobs out there, and those that are, especially those that protect and help others, are heroic no matter what that asshole (if the mods will allow me this) thinks.



Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: churchillbuff

Journalists hate everyone. What a jerk. Off.



by 5 posted onby Conspiracy Guy (Living fast is fine as long as you steer well and have good brakes.)

To: churchillbuff

This is raw sewage.



If a man or woman sits on their duff most of the time, but tomorrow they might die while trying to pull me out of my burning house....



To: churchillbuff

I have to say I agree tentatively with much of this article. Firemen are no more "heros" than police or sanitation workers. If you think about it, permanent fire personnel were created in the days when we heated our homes with woodburning stoves and there were no fire codes or fireproof materials. Today's homes are much less prone to fire, yet the bill for fire protection keeps going up and up. And the local fireman is a sacred cow, heavily propped up by the media as a "hero," and too unionized to fire. But the taxpayer foots the bill for men who spend the vast majority of their time doing very little. Granted, when they work, it's ugly and dangerous. That is, WHEN they work ...



To: churchillbuff

A cush job, most of the time And this nancy boy left wing pundit sits on his butt most of the time making 3 times the average firefighters salary. I bet this sissy boy is not the "adrenaline rushing" type guy he suggests he is. Not if he works for THAT magazine, IMO



To: churchillbuff

He's right- most of the time it is a cushy job.



It's the rest of the time, when the job is really dangerous and sucks, that they get paid and thanked for.



by 9 posted onby TheAngryClam (Don't blame me, I voted for McClintock.)

To: browngal

Yep, the exception is always the rule.



To: churchillbuff

I would like to give this author a good old fashion ass whippin. He desperately needs it



by 11 posted onby MJY1288 (This is your tagline "Bush/Cheney04", this is your tagline on drugs "AnyOtherChoice/04")

To: churchillbuff

What else do you call someone who runs TOWARDS danger on my behalf ? HERO works for me.



To: Flurry

Journalists hate everyone. Left wing journalist hate men in male-type jobs. Not metrosexual enough for them. No kidding, everything they write is tied into the Agenda.



To: churchillbuff

It is a great job, until a burning building falls down on your head, killing you and a couple of your buddies. Other than that, it's easy street.



by 14 posted onby dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)

To: churchillbuff

Who cares if they sit on their ass playing cards or watching TV most of the time. When duty calls, they risk their lives to save others lives and their property. I think I read statistics somewhere that you are much more likely to die on the job as a fire fighter as a police officer.



To: churchillbuff

There are many jobs which have seemingly leisurely work schedules, pay well, and 90%+ of the time the work is so easy the person could do it in their sleep. But what counts is the ability of the person to be extremely good at their job in the 1% of the time when it's really really hard. For example, consider the job of the transcontinental airline pilot. Very high-paying job, but on most flights with today's technology the pilot has to do little more than punch a few buttons to take off, set a course, and--a few hours later--land the plane. Really nothing that a first-year rookie pilot couldn't handle just as well. But if a plane is flying over the Pacific when some freak turbulence kills two of the engines and damages some of the control systems, things can change suddenly. A situation which represent near-certain death for everyone on the plane with a rookie at the controls may be survivable with an expert. And it's for the ability to handle those situations--rare though they may be--that the transcontinental pilots get the big bucks.



by 16 posted onby supercat (Why is it that the more "gun safety" laws are passed, the less safe my guns seem?)

To: Tijeras_Slim

So what.. if my house is on fire, I sure as h#ll don't want "journalists" to show up. Re: lol ! I can just see it now: "In light of the wildfires in southern CA, Govner Arnold has called in Less Mooves, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather"



To: Nonstatist

Notice he does not describe his "mountain rescue work". What a punk!



To: churchillbuff; Barney Gumble

Oh cry me a river.



I've had to do firefighting training with the Navy and as part of doing some merchant shipping work. Firefighting sucks and I certainly couldn't do it for a living. Nothing is so fun as being in a room where the smoke is so thick you can't see the hand in front of your face.



For the people who that sort of job day in and day out, I say God bless 'em.



To: churchillbuff

24 hours on, 48 hours off. The hours and shifts vary. Some even work 7 days on/7 days off.



Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

FreeRepublic , LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794

FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson