---
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: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# 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 Fighter; Fire Management Specialist; Fire Technician (Fire Tech); Firefighter; Forest Fire Suppression Specialist; Forestry Fire Technician (Forestry Fire Tech).

## 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:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.4% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 27,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 75/100 — 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 344,900 in the 2024–2034 base year to 356,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 11,800 jobs, or +3.4%. About as fast as average: 3.4% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 27,100 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Postsecondary nondegree award (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Long-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 35.9% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 24.6% |
| Some College Courses | 19.5% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 9.4% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 7.2% |
| First Professional Degree | 3.0% |

## What the work involves

- Respond to fire alarms and other calls for assistance, such as automobile and industrial accidents.
- Clean and maintain fire stations and fire fighting equipment and apparatus.
- Extinguish flames and embers to suppress fires, using shovels or engine- or hand-driven water or chemical pumps.
- Participate in fire drills and demonstrations of fire fighting techniques.
- Assess fires and situations and report conditions to superiors to receive instructions, using two-way radios.
- Drive and operate fire fighting vehicles and equipment.
- Dress with equipment such as fire-resistant clothing and breathing apparatus.
- Inform and educate the public on fire prevention.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — 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 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 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 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Static Strength — importance 3.8 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 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 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 30.3 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