I decided im going to be a fire fighter!

[Rennat]

I was working on my engine tonight, and i've been thinking about my life in general and where its headed... i wanted to try welding, but, i dont think i can see myself sitting there welding every day, even if im not welding for 40 hours every week, i just dont think it would be that much fun overall...

So i decided i want to "do something with my life'' you could say, i wanna rescue people and do fun stuff like that, and fighting fires sounds like fun. And it also means i could move just about anywhere and get a job, because lets be honest, there are fires everywhere!

So, im going to Transfer to a school up in Sacramento, the same one i wanted for welding, and take the fire fighting classes and what not... just sucks i kind of 'wasted' my time at the current college im at, but once i take the requied 35 units of fire fighting stuff, i get my AA! (i already have 28 units, and i need 60 for my AA, and im going to be taking 12 more this fall! so i'll be set for getting my AA if some of the classes dont transfer...


thanks for reading, i just wanted to share with everybody i guess!

 

[Clueless]

Yea, I weld 40-60 hours a week and have been doing it for 2.5 years...it's get's old after a year and I could've done better going back to school to do what I really wanna do - Computer IT/Network Admin.

 

[Mark1JZ]

Is it hard to get the firefighter job? it is here in the UK
how much it pay? its about 28K here , which I guess is about $56K
fiend of mine does it - great shifts: 4 days on, 4 days off

 

[Clueless]

Is it hard to get the firefighter job? it is here in the UK
how much it pay? its about 28K here , which I guess is about $56K
fiend of mine does it - great shifts: 4 days on, 4 days off

Last time I checked, your island is much smaller then our country.... :biggrinki (that's me being an ass)



But seriously, when you have more area to cover, you usually need more people.

 

[Rennat]

just look at how many cars on here caught fire! somebody had to put them out
(and i truly hate to see supras burn)

but i dated a girl, her dad was the only working person in the family, and lets just say money wasnt an issue EVER. He had been doing it for more than few years and all, but still. So yeah, theres plenty of money to be made, especially after 10, 15 years...

and its not so much about the money, its more of i want to do something different every time i go to work, i HATE doing the same thing over and over and over... it gets old, and my wife is going to work also, so we'll be a two income family.

And right now like half of California is on fire... LOL. theres been a freakin gray haze in the air for the past two weeks because of the fires...


clueless - what kind of welding do you do exactly? just making stuff or like crazy shit like titanium vacuum welding?

 

[Clueless]

clueless - what kind of welding do you do exactly? just making stuff or like crazy shit like titanium vacuum welding?

Just standard mig welding mild steel, but i manufacture forklift frames for Toyota Industrial Equipment. I estimated I put on about a million welds a year.

 

[aye mate]

I just graduated from the Fire Academy here in Frederick County, Maryland. I make about 40k a year and get full retirement benfits after 20 years (I'll be 41 when I retire) Honestly its the best job in the world. I go to work for a 24 hour shift, then I'm off for 48 hours. Equals out to working about 8, 24 hour shifts a month. I haven't fought any fire since I've been in the field, but the training burns we did in the academy were alot of fun. I am riding the ambulance mostly as that is what goes out the door 85% of the time. I had no prior experience, same goes for about half of my class. I know around here its pretty competitive so when theres an opening don't waste any time. My cousin just took the written test for Frederick County. The test started at 8:30am he arrived at the location at 6:15am and he was 144th in line out of 150 people they were allowing to test that day. Go for it man, I can't imagine still being at my old job(where I work part time now).

 

[Rennat]

wow... not bad! i 'should' make a little more because i live in CA, with living expenses and all, but shit, full retirement at 41? that shit sounds NICE!!!!!

i told my parents today, they were kinda like... WTF! where did this come from!??! but... i think they see why i wanna do it. but i think it will be a good job, and should be fairly exciting.

and im guessing that your ambulance and fire trucks are stationed at the same place? because where i live, they have entirely different places, and i believe the paramedics are actually privately contracted.

 

[screaminglemon]

good luck. firefighting is extreemly competitive. maybe smoke jumping type of stuff is easier to get into, but who the hell wants to do that?

also, alot of the smaller depatments are mostly volunteer. so no moneys there.

i took the test a few years ago for seattle. there was maybe 4 or 5 thousand people there. all trying for maybe 10 spots. my father and uncle are both in the seattle department so i had a little inside info but that still didnt help me.

also, you should know that actually fighting fires is a small part of a fire fighters job. most of your runs will be aid and responding to car wrecks.