What branch is best for firefighter?

gugliamo00

In my humble opinion, Navy.

In any land-based situation, if the blaze is out of control, you turn your attention to adjoining buildings to prevent the fire's spread. In the Navy, if a blaze gets out of control, the crew swims home.

The Navy, therefore, would logically have to be able to cope with a wider variety of situations and there would be an added incentive to put the darn thing out.

I was Navy 25 years. Never had to put out a fire.

Mike E

Everyone in the Navy is trained to be in the fire party - a fire at sea is the scariest thing to a sailor - there simply no where to go. Damage Controlman would your best bet for true hardcore firefighting training. Anything in the engine room - Machinist Mate (MM), Boiler Tech (BT) - would get a great foundation for fire fighting. Navy bases used to use Navy DC, MM, BT, and such to run the base fire departments and these guys also serve in battle units during wars as fireman.

Never buy into the AF having a better firefighting team than the Navy. Like I said there is nothing scarier to a Sailor or a Marine at sea than a fire. The Naval Recruit Training Command (RCT) in Great Lakes, Il has an awesome firefighting training facility. They (Naval Personnel) used to train the Chicago Firefighters on that base - maybe still do.

By the way - Damage Control also means putting the damn fire out! And we got a lot of HAZ-MAT training - AF is not the only ones that launch Airplanes - but they do it from the safety of the ground. Think about a plane crash on an Aircraft Carrier.

LA Kings Fan

I researched this many years ago. I chose the Air Force because they are trained to handle both structural and aircraft firefighting duties. In the Air Force you work side by side with federal civilian firefighters. You will be assigned to an engine company at times and a crash truck at times depending to the staffing needs of the fire department. If you are on an engine or rescue you will also respond to medical aids and traffic accidents with the ambulance. The Marines do the aircraft only and civilians handle the rest. The Army and Navy also have civilian firefighters on base but I don't believe the soldiers or sailors are working directly with the federal civilian firefighters. So, you will get a more well rounded experience in the Air Force.
Make absolutely sure that the recruiter gets you a guarenteed firefighter slot before you leave for basic training. If you get to basic without a guarenteed slot, you probably won't get what you want.

Aw geez..

Pick the largest branches whenever you are trying to get a rare job, more opportunities. I believe you can't get the firefighter job in most services without prior experience also. Look for a job that will have skills that you can use in firefighting: maybe medic with emt, truck driver, military police, etc.

Joseph

Air Force because you get more hazmat training on things like Airplane crashes and what not. Army doesn't have near the amount of aircraft, neither do the Marines. In the Navy though, everyone is a trained firefighter to some extent. I say Air Force.

Mrsjvb

only the AF has true Firefighters and that is almost impossible to get.

everybody else uses Civilians on their bases.

as a DC in the Navy you would not really be doing much 'firefighting' its all about damage control..keeping the ship afloat by any means necessary.

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