It could be that being a firefighter actually isn't as risky a job as most people assume, and for a site that likes to use graphs as sociological images so much I'm surprised this doesn't come up more:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america/
. . . showing that the most dangerous jobs are in fishing, logging, piloting, construction, farming . . . police, firefighter, and soldier don't even make the top ten.

Isn't this pretty much how much people think about cars? We're used to them, and if there's an accident we find out whose fault it is and reassure ourselves that we'd be smarter than that.

MOST people think about cars...

That's not what I would have guessed.

I would guess that most career-focused men choose the career they do because of status. Sometimes the career itself grants status -- an academic is respected for his intellect and perception, an artist for his perception and his creativity, a soldier for his bravery -- and sometimes the career is to make a lot of money, which is what grants the status in the end. From a young age, one subconsciously assesses his strengths and weaknesses, and enjoys or has higher tolerance for those activities that suit his strengths, with an eye toward developing them and winning the high regard of others. Whether conscious or not, the goal is social regard and signaling, the purpose of which is to attract women. I realize that is totally male-centric. I think it reflects the social / cultural standard that women tend to be attracted to men on balance more for their status, than for their appearance. Obviously the major weakness of the theory is explaining career-focused women. I'd guess it's second order: they see the status game among men, don't realize it's just a game for winning women (after all the men are hardly aware of this either), and so they get drawn in too. Or perhaps because the whole game is a social construct (despite being largely subconscious), developed from men exploiting legacies of gender-imbalanced power and control of resources to their advantage in the mating contest, but with these legacies becoming weaker, women can now draw on the same instinct to their advantage.

My husband runs controlled burns as part of his job, and he sure as hell thinks they're dangerous, as does his crew. Maybe it's different because he SETS the fires, but I don't think so.

However, when there is a death or mishap on a fire, anywhere, he does dissect the situation and may criticize something about it. Isn't that natural? You want to know why and figure out if it could happen to you.

I also wonder if these responses were partly bravado or an unwillingness to be open.

@MPS:

really? i'm a woman and getting into the air force and my goal is to eventually become a pilot. by your reasoning, i've subconsciously chosen this path because i've fallen into the woman-getting game. not so in reality. i've always wanted to be in the air, and wanted to be in the military, ergo, my career choice.

i have a good friend who is a homicide detective, and a volunteer fire fighter in his town. he chose his path, not to get women (he can get many), but rather because he likes to help others, and he was drawn to being the advocate for the victim.

so yeah, i can understand how fire fighters don't see themselves as necessarily being in all that much danger.

This is interesting - I took a sociology course on natural disasters and emergencies and during that we talked about the Mann Gulch and South Canyon fires - both of them resulted in the deaths of 13 and 14 firefighters respectively. We discussed a couple of things about firefighters - one article in particular suggested that firefighters weren't really incredibly brave but working-class men and women who saw the work as a good opportunity for seasonal pay. It was more a suggestion that we shouldn't glorify firefighters because in reality they wouldn't do the work if they had better options. Another case study suggested that firefighters will take risks that are against safety guidelines because they grow comfortable with the work and don't see any other way to get the job done. The South Canyon tragedy in particular was a result of trying to create a fire line downhill. Oddly enough none of the things we read in class suggested status as motivating factor for choosing the job but both the Mann Gulch and South Canyon fires did suggest that people died because they didn't pay attention to risk factors.

Fighting/controlling fires in an open area is a lot different than running into a residential or commercial building. I think the danger is much less apparent in an open area as compared to a closed one. I'd much prefer fighting forest fires to running into a burning building, but I haven't looked into risk assessments for either job.

...and this is why victim blaming will never go away.

A lot of firefighters (more so in the city) are former members of the military. I believe that all branches of the military offer firefighting as a career choice, and for some branches such as the Navy, everyone is expected to know the basics of preventing and putting out a fire. In general, a lot of high risk civil service jobs (police, firefighters, state trooper)often go to former members of the military,

I would like to know about urban firefighters and their reasoning and risk assessment. It is highly unlikely that they all have moved from the countryside and been "in touch with nature".

This attitude is really pervasive in risky jobs. In chemistry we do the same as the firefighters.... 

Plus we're pretty used to fires. They happen. We just know how to put them out.

Though I'll grant you that a fire that big is pretty scary to me.

A recent study about the image of firemen as being 'macho':

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-firefighters-macho-men.html

Very interesting. I wonder if this same principle applies to other dangerous jobs - like fishermen, logging workers or pilots? 

As Desmond wrote: “Certain bodies, deemed precious, are protected, while others, deemed expendable, protect.”

ugh. Why "bodies"? Its so grating. It sounds so cant-filled.

I don't think the car-analogy is very good. Driving a car is in actual fact not very dangerous. Where I live, about 150 people a year die in traffic-accidents. This among over 2 million cars being driven about 20 billion miles a year. The most dangerous thing about taking the car is that it means *not* walking or biking, and inactivity kills a dozen people for each time a traffic-accident kills one person.

I wrote about gender and work-related death a while ago as well here (http://wp.me/p28qKO-m9). Great post! I'm teaching Intro this fall. I'm considering adopting Desmond's book for the Spring after reading this and your teaching notes. Thanks for sharing! Best, Tristan

This attitude is very similar to that I saw in the soldiers in the documentary "Restrepo". Any time someone is killed, they frame it as being because of some mistake that they or someone else made, not because of inherent danger. Maybe it's a way to cope with the fact that sometimes there is no way to prevent your own injury or death.

Some years back there was a cogent article about whether men attempt riskier actions compared to women because men are less risk-averse, i.e. more courageous than women - or because men are less risk-aware than women. Turned out their sample of men tended to consistently underestimate actual risk, whereas the women's assessment of risk was closer to fact. I just Googled madly to try to find this article, but failed! Curses!

I have nothing but respect for firefighters. I hope they get the best retirement packages for what they do. safe harbor 401k

i dont like this site]

One line tells me this guys is full of S**t and his work is for something OTHER than studying firefighters: "Wildland firefighters are typically low income men from rural backgrounds; in Desmond’s study, they were also disproportionately Latino and American Indian. As Desmond wrote: “Certain bodies, deemed precious, are protected, while others, deemed expendable, protect.”
I worked a Type-1 Incident Management Team as part of Admin / Finance section which meant I paid the bills and payrolls of ALL the fire crews. The VAST VAST majority of crews racial/ethnic makeup are young WHITE men. There are "smatterings" of Latino and Native Americans and some specific crews are mostly Latino or Native American but VAST majority of firefighters are young white men. And they're paid fairly well. Fire season is when a lot of these folks make enough money to carry them through long periods of joblessness. So they do tend to come from working class and poor backgrounds but the idea that "rich WHITE America" is making their minorities take all the risks on the fire line is liberal academic nonsense. What's more, since THIS guy was actually THERE he is either lying or choosing to ignore what doesn't confirm his chosen narrative. What's THAT say about his books? Think about THAT before you invest time and money in one.