---
title: "Firefighter"
description: "Control and extinguish fires or respond to emergency situations where life, property, or the environment is at risk. Duties may include fire prevention…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/firefighter"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Firefighter

**Category:** Protective Service · **SOC code:** 33-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 33-2011.00

Control and extinguish fires or respond to emergency situations where life, property, or the environment is at risk. Duties may include fire prevention, emergency medical service, hazardous material response, search and rescue, and disaster assistance.

Also advertised as: Fire Engineer; Fire Equipment Operator; Fire Rescue Technician (Fire Rescue Tech); Fire Technician (Fire Tech); Fireman; Forest Fire Suppression Specialist; Forestry Fire Technician (Forestry Fire Tech); Hot Shot.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $59,280 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $28.50/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $34,910 to $101,040, with the middle half between $44,490 and $77,250
- **Total US employment:** 345,990
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 26,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 65/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 345,990 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $34,910 |
| 25th | $44,490 |
| 50th (median) | $59,280 |
| 75th | $77,250 |
| 90th | $101,040 |
| Mean (average) | $63,630 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NY | $100,960 | $93,550 | 12,950 |
| WA | $94,520 | $88,326 | 7,560 |
| CA | $85,120 | $76,879 | 31,470 |
| NJ | $84,130 | $77,322 | 7,500 |
| IL | $78,380 | $78,413 | 18,400 |
| CT | $77,630 | $74,925 | 2,970 |
| DC | $75,870 | $69,035 | 1,480 |
| CO | $74,170 | $71,973 | 6,510 |
| MD | $73,810 | $70,323 | 5,340 |
| PA | $73,460 | $75,288 | 5,020 |
| MA | $72,800 | $68,837 | 11,940 |
| OR | $70,900 | $68,595 | 3,790 |
| RI | $67,380 | $65,878 | 1,620 |
| NV | $66,570 | $66,584 | 2,640 |
| IN | $62,780 | $67,267 | 8,530 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/firefighter/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/firefighter.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 355,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 368,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 13,100 jobs, or +3.7%. About as fast as average: 3.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 26,800 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Postsecondary nondegree award (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Long-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Rescue survivors from burning buildings, accident sites, and water hazards.
- Dress with equipment such as fire-resistant clothing and breathing apparatus.
- Respond to fire alarms and other calls for assistance, such as automobile and industrial accidents.
- Assess fires and situations and report conditions to superiors to receive instructions, using two-way radios.
- Patrol burned areas after fires to locate and eliminate hot spots that may restart fires.
- Collaborate with police to respond to accidents, disasters, and arson investigation calls.
- Clean and maintain fire stations and fire fighting equipment and apparatus.
- Maintain knowledge of current firefighting practices by participating in drills and by attending seminars, conventions, and conferences.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Static Strength — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Stamina — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.49 |
| C — Conventional | 3.47 |
| S — Social | 3.39 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.01 |
| I — Investigative | 2.92 |
| A — Artistic | 1.31 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 78.8 |
| ISTP | 71.4 |
| ISFJ | 70.8 |
| ESTJ | 70.8 |
| ESTP | 64.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [First-Line Supervisor of Firefighting and Prevention Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-firefighting-and-prevention-workers) — median $93,530
- [Forest Fire Inspector and Prevention Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-fire-inspector-and-prevention-specialist) — median $56,870
- [Fire Inspector and Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fire-inspector-and-investigator) — median $75,920
- [Fire-Prevention and Protection Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fire-prevention-and-protection-engineer) — median $115,160
- [Lifeguard, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/lifeguard-ski-patrol-and-other-recreational-protective-service-worker) — median $33,580
- [Emergency Medical Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medical-technician) — median $44,470
- [Paramedic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paramedic) — median $60,600
- [Occupational Health and Safety Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-health-and-safety-specialist) — median $90,150
- [Forest and Conservation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-and-conservation-worker) — median $43,680
- [Ambulance Driver and Attendant, Except Emergency Medical Technicians](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ambulance-driver-and-attendant) — median $35,450

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/firefighter