They are also often out there narcaning people when paramedics are not available (which I am sure they are not super pumped about).

Honestly I am not really upset about that. Train them to support the community in other ways while they hang out waiting for a fire. People are always raging that police cant handle mental health incidents, train them for that (heh I am sure firefighters would not be pumped about that but you get the idea).

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Ensorceled 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m only upset that we have an over abundance of fire fighters now and are looking for ways to keep them busy. Retraining as a combination of EMT and Fire for instance.

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bluGill 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I want an overabundance of firefighters. On average my town needs 0. However a couple times a year there is a fire and then we need 30 for a couple hours. We solve this by hiring 30 full time fire fighters so that 10 are always on duty, and when there is a fire we call the on duty fire fighters from the other nearby towns to help.

(The above numbers are only rough estimates, close enough for discussion, but not even close to right)

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Ensorceled 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But the need for them has gone down? Should we hire 10x as many? 40x?

	▲	bluGill 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Has the need gone down? This isn't only about fire. Where I live fire fighters are a "jack of all emergency trades" because we can't keep experts in everything on hand all the time. I'd rather paramedics for medical problems but they don't have training to deal with all the other things that happen in an emergency so we still need others. And better than paramedics is fast transport to a real emergency room because that will have specialized equipment that won't all fit on a vehicle - which a well trained fire fighter can do.

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kiliantics 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

take a look at how their pensions work and and what it costs you and you might reconsider (basically, it's a similar deal to the police pension mafia)

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SoftTalker 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah the classic case is the firefigher who puts in 20 years, retires in his 40s with a full pension and then starts a second career or business.

And maybe that's fair compensation for someone who has been working a job that literally risks his life, but it's not cheap.

	▲	gimlichgu 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No! the only people that deserve to have enough money to be comfortable are people writing react frontends for surveillance tech

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mindslight 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh no, a blue collar profession getting a lucrative wage! That's a right normally reserved for white collar turncoat vectoralists like surveillance industry software engineers. Quick, call all the other crabs in the bucket!

There are legitimate critiques of the perverse incentives of defined benefit pensions, but on the whole I'd say it's better to focus on why the overwhelming standard is for people to not be paid well.

(Police unions are indeed a scourge. But similarly, the amount they get paid is like one of the things I am least concerned about)

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1234letshaveatw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Interesting. In many (most?) US cities firefighters are responding a variety of calls, most commonly more serious car accidents. They also typically hold a number of certifications. Fire calls are uncommon. It makes the most sense from a utilization aspect IMO.