Becoming a Firefighter

            
             For my first essay assignment I will be discussing several different things that I have discovered about firefighters. For example I will talk about the history, what they specialize in, their skills, their pay, their requirements, the work environment, and also the types of advancements that they have. In addition I will be discussing both my thoughts on my son's desiring to join this career choice and also where I have obtained my information. .
             Okay, let's start things off by explaining a bit of history on firefighters and how it began to adapt as time went on. The man that first came up with the idea of hiring people to combat fire was thought up by Benjamin Franklin while at Philadelphia in 1736. In New York, one year later the bucket brigade method was invented, which is one man passes a bucket of water to the next man until they get to the fire. Despite there being a fire department in 1871 there was a fire so bad that it almost burned down Chicago. Entering the 19th century the U.S government needed to supply fire departments with new equipment to help combat fire, such as hoses, fire trucks and axes. Unfortunately, the fire trucks would break down, the hoses were too weak and the firefighters were not properly trained. Although some of the new equipment was very helpful in stopping fire such as the telegraph which got replaced with the telephone and the fire extinguisher. During this time the system of building code was invented, which required buildings to have smoke alarms, a sprinkler system and fire drills in order to keep people safe and stop the spread of fire. In 2000, the National Fire Data Center has reported 22,350 people injured 4,045 deaths 102 of which were firefighters on duty. Currently, speaking there are over 258,000 firefighters working within the United States and also over 30,000 organize fire departments within the States. .
             There are a lot of different specialties that a firefighter can have and depending on what job title he or she has it could mean an entirely different responsibility in combating fire.