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Comment by GaryTang | Hacker News Reader

Or firefighters can continue doing their job like the rest of us, seeing that they’re some of the highest paid members of our society… I think they’re just bitter they can’t use their lazy man recliners as much as they use to. I for one am glad they are finally experiencing what it’s like to work for any private organization.

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The firefighters are finding it hard to do their jobs because they're being called to help do chores for senior homes. That is what the whole article is about. It sounds to me like they wouldn't mind helping the elderly if it didn't prevent them from fulfilling their primary job of, you know, fighting fires.

Modern fire prevention techniques and building codes mean that firefighters don't spend much time actually fighting fires. Most of their calls are for vehicles crashes and medical emergencies. (And I don't intend this as a criticism of firefighters, someone has to respond to those incidents.)

Sure, but whatever they're supposed to be doing, it's not chores at an old folks home

You know there are a lot of places in the US with volunteer fire departments, right?

> NFPA estimates there were an estimated 1,115,000 career and volunteer firefighters in the United States in 2018. Of the total number of firefighters 370,000 (33%) were career firefighters and 745,000 (67%) were volunteer firefighters.

https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Data-research-and-too...

Where I live (quite rural) the entire department is composed of volunteers. The "fire chief" even is a volunteer.

We like to say they'll get there just in time to save the foundation.

To volunteer implies you are already well off enough to have housing and food, thus have the luxury of being able to donate your time to volunteering.

Be my guest, go to a small town fire hall and see how “well off” the volunteers are compared to the median HN poster.

I have been. Not one of them are forced to be firefighters. They volunteer

...and FYI, those volunteers get to pick and choose which calls they respond to. Not sure what axe you're grinding, but I'm glad you don't live in my district.

If there was a scale representing job difficulty — firefighter would be among the lowest difficult. I can respect those that volunteer but the ones who are career have no sympathy from me seeing that they are easily in the top 5% of society for doing something that 80% of us can do.

I'm going to wager a guess that you didn't read the article. They are being called to change bandages and replace IV's. This is NOT a firefighters job.

I suspect firefighters are being called because firefighters tend to also be EMTs. I can understand how the practice caught on, but it does seem inappropriate.

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