Originally posted by: Mo0o
From what I hear it's a super cushy job, especially if you live in a suburban neighborhood. One guy in my med shcool was a firefighter and he scheduled his shifts on the weekends and he'd just watch football all day.
I used to be a newspaper photographer in a suburban neighborhood and I spent lots of time photographing firefighters. It's anything but a cushy job. I'm most familiar with the Los Angeles County Fire Department and those guys work their butts off.
The last crew I spent time with was working 24hr shifts. Their schedule was something like 1 day on, 1 day off, 1 day on, 2 days off, 1 day on, 4 days off. Then they would start over again. It adds up to 9 8-hour shifts every 10 days, but that was several years ago and I have no idea what a "standard" shift would be now.
Anyway, on the average day they didn't have a ton of downtime. And when a big fire starts they work for days, weeks or months until it's out. I've seen guys working around the clock for days with the occasional 4 hour sleep break. I've seen firefighters passed out in the street with their head on the cement curb to get what little rest they can before going back on the line.
I've also seen firefighters get blisters through their boots on a house fire. Seen a big tough guy crying when he couldn't revive a little kid he pulled from a swimming pool. Well, you get the picture. It ain't a cushy job.
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