{"id":36836,"date":"2013-07-01T12:30:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T17:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=36836"},"modified":"2017-09-17T12:39:20","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T17:39:20","slug":"why-do-firefighters-take-such-a-risky-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/07\/01\/why-do-firefighters-take-such-a-risky-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Firefighters Take Such Risky Jobs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Re-posted in honor of the 19 firefighters who lost their lives in Arizona yesterday. Cross-posted at BlogHer<\/a>\u00a0and The Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Firefighters put their lives on the line to protect other people’s property and lives. \u00a0Why do they choose to take such dangerous work? \u00a0Sociologist Matthew Desmond<\/a> asks this question in his book, On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters<\/em><\/a>, and the answer is truly surprising.<\/p>\n

Desmond, who put himself through college fighting fires in Arizona, returned to his old job as a graduate student in order to study his fellow firefighters. \u00a0When he asked them why they were willing to put their lives at risk to fight fires, the firefighters responded, “Risk? What risk?”<\/p>\n

It turned out that the firefighters didn’t think that their work was dangerous. \u00a0How is this possible?<\/p>\n

Desmond explains that most of the firefighters were working-class men from the country who had been working with nature all of their lives. \u00a0They raised cattle and rode horses; they cut down trees, chopped firewood, and built fences; they hunted and fished as often as they could. \u00a0They were at home in nature. \u00a0They felt that they knew <\/em>nature. \u00a0And they had been manipulating nature all their lives. \u00a0\u00a0Desmond wrote: \u00a0\u201c\u2026my\u00a0crewmembers are much more than confident on the fireline. \u00a0They are comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

To these men, fire was just another part of nature. \u00a0They believed that if you understood the forest, respected fire, and paid attention, then you could keep yourself safe. \u00a0Period. Fire wasn’t dangerous. \u00a0One of the firefighters put it like this:<\/p>\n

Cause, personally, I don\u2019t consider my life in danger. \u00a0I think that the people I work with and with the knowledge I know, my life isn\u2019t in danger… If you know, as a firefighter, how to act on a fire, how to approach it, this and that, I mean you\u2019re, yeah, fire can hurt you. \u00a0But if you know, if you can soak up the stuff that has been taught to you, it\u2019s not a dangerous job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When these men were called “heroes,” they laughed. \u00a0Desmond wrote: \u201cThe thought of dying on the fireline is so distant from firefighters\u2019 imaginations that they find the idea comedic.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a fellow firefighter did tragically die on the fireline during Desmond’s study, he discovered just how deep this went. \u00a0Unwilling to consider the possibility that fire was dangerous (at least in front of each other), the only way to make sense of the death was to find fault in an individual, or even blame the dead firefighter for being “stupid.” \u00a0Desmond recounts this conversation:<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sucks,\u201d J.J. said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone fucked up,\u201d Donald responded, immediately. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what happened: \u00a0Someone fucked up…”<\/p>\n

Heads nodded.<\/p>\n

Craig Neilson, the Fire Prevention Officer, added, \u201cTheir communications might have been fucked. . . . The fire was under them and burned up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey probably weren\u2019t paying attention,\u201d Donald said…<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re probably stupid. \u00a0Probably weren\u2019t talking to their crew,\u201d Peter guessed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep. \u00a0They\u2019re fuckin\u2019 stupid, not talking to anyone. \u00a0They should\u2019ve known better than to build a helispot on top of the fire,\u201d said Donald.<\/p>\n

Heads continued to nod…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Desmond’s answer to why firefighters take such a risky job — because they don’t think it’s risky — was a fabulous counterpoint to dominant theories of risk taking at the time, which tended to suggest that men who did risky things were trying to prove their masculinity or seek adoration as a hero.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to conclude that the firefighters are delusional for thinking that fire isn’t risky, but Desmond does a wonderful job of showing that their denial of risk is mundane. \u00a0We do it every day that we jump into a car and approach 70 miles per hour on the freeway. \u00a0If we are worried about our safety, it’s usually because we are concerned about the skills and attention of other<\/em> drivers. \u00a0Most of us think that we, personally, are pretty decent, even great drivers. \u00a0The firefighters tend to feel the same about fire.<\/p>\n

Today’s deaths remind us that fire is dangerous. \u00a0We should also remember that risky jobs are disproportionately filled by the least powerful members of our society. \u00a0Wildland firefighters are typically low income men from rural backgrounds; in Desmond’s study, they were also disproportionately Latino and American Indian. \u00a0As Desmond wrote:\u00a0\u201cCertain bodies, deemed precious, are protected, while others, deemed expendable,\u00a0protect.\u201d \u00a0Let’s take a moment to remember the 19 who lost their lives yesterday, as well as the other men and women who do the dangerous work of America. \u00a0And be careful everybody.<\/p>\n

Note for Instructors: I teach this book in Soc 101, with great success. \u00a0I wrote a review in Teaching Sociology<\/em><\/a> and you can download my lecture notes here<\/a>. And Talking Points Memo posted a slideshow of photos<\/a> of a wildfire in Arizona.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Re-posted in honor of the 19 firefighters who lost their lives in Arizona yesterday. Cross-posted at BlogHer\u00a0and The Huffington Post. Firefighters put their lives on the line to protect other people’s property and lives. \u00a0Why do they choose to take such dangerous work? \u00a0Sociologist Matthew Desmond asks this question in his book, On the Fireline: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,2123,55,2087,341,76],"class_list":["post-36836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-environmentnature","tag-gender","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-ruralurban","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36836"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71423,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36836\/revisions\/71423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}