Becoming a firefighter today is a remarkably challenging effort. Looking ahead, I sometimes feel it’s the impossible staring back at me. I am in my late 30’s, live in a suburb of San Francisco, California, and the job market for an aspiring firefighter is not promising. Shortly after I started chasing fire in 2009, San Francisco Fire Department began taking applications in an effort to hire new firefighters. They received well over 10,000 applications. Consider how many more applications they would have received had they accepted them online or by mail or fax. As it is the 10,000+ they got had to be retrieved and delivered by the applicant in person. Eventually, the SFFD reopened their application acceptance in an effort to get even more candidates.
The point of this is that we are not living in our fathers time, and to become a firefighter these days is going to take desire, tenacity, persistence and perseverance, education and more.
How long will it take? Will it even be possible? That is what this blog is about. I am doing all I can to make myself as appealing a candidate as possible. Hopefully, I can help others who are considering becoming firefighters to learn what’s involved and what I have gone and am going through. With this, I hope you’ll be able to learn from my failures and successes and take a well planned and educated approach in your own journey to firefighter.