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Firefighting is a profession aimed at controlling and extinguishing fire. [1] A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter or fireman. [2]
A fire department responds to a fire every 23 seconds throughout the United States. [4] Fire departments responded to 26,959,000 calls for service in 2020. Of these, 64.2% were for medical help, 8% were false alarms, and 3.9% were for actual fires. [5]
A firefighter (or fire fighter or fireman) is a first responder trained in firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires that threaten life and property, as well as to rescue persons from confinement or dangerous situations.
In Europe, firefighting was quite rudimentary until the 17th century.In 1254, a royal decree of King Saint Louis of France created the so-called guet bourgeois ("burgess watch"), allowing the residents of Paris to establish their own night watches, separate from the king's night watches, to prevent and stop crimes and fires.
Ventilation is a part of structural firefighting tactics, and involves the expulsion of heat and smoke from a burning building, permitting the firefighters to more easily and safely find trapped individuals and attack the fire. It is frequently performed from the outside of a burning building while the fire is being extinguished on the inside.
The first female firefighter in the United Kingdom (Mary Joy Langdon) was recruited in 1976, [3] while the first in New Zealand (Anne Barry) joined in 1981. [4] Many fire departments required recruits to pass tough fitness tests, which became an unofficial barrier to women joining. This led to court cases in a number of countries.
Firefighting jargon includes a diverse lexicon of both common and idiosyncratic terms. One problem that exists in trying to create a list such as this is that much of the terminology used by a particular department is specifically defined in their particular standing operating procedures, such that two departments may have completely different terms for the same thing.
Articles related to fire, firefighting and rescue functions commonly performed by firefighters. Subcategories This category has the following 26 subcategories, out of 26 total.