Hello everyone, great site here, very informative discussions. I like places like this where people help each other out instead of yelling at each other over opinions.


Anyway, I'm currently a 19 year old student stuck at a crossroad in my life. I'm going to school for journalism at the moment. However, I've been rethinking this decision alot recently and was wondering if it was at all possible for me to try to go after my "dream job" when I was younger, which of course was to be a firefighter.

I don't have very bad vision, but I don't have great vision either. I learned growing up that I was going to have a lot of challenges in my way, but I've adapted quite well to all of them.


Is there a "standard" vision requirement for all firefighters? My feeling is that I know I can do the job adaquetly and I hate having people who aren't in my shoes telling me what I can and cannot do in terms of my vision, I have no problem with people telling me what to do otherwise if they think they should.


I'd like to volunteer first, to see if I can first of and to see if I truely want this to be a career, if that matters at all.


Thanks to anyone who replies and stay safe out there.

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Hi, I am not familiar with any vision standards, I would recommend on volunteering first, then pursuing firefighting as a career. Not only to see if you can do it but to get some training and experience under your belt. If you want to do anything..... just set your mind to it.. it can be done.
Hi, another thing you could consider is being an engineer, that's something you could do and still wear your glasses and still be in the same profession, I have been an engineer Part-Time for 3 years and Full-Time for 6 Months and I love it, just another thought. Be Safe.
Well this is a pretty old thread, but I've followed through and sent in an application to my local volunteer company. Thanks for all the help, I'll be sure to come back in here and update you on my situation in case there is anyone else out there who has this problem.
Good luck. Sounds like you really want to do this, you will make a good ff.
No standards that I know of for vision. FF's come with all types of vision issues. Most people can not see very well in a full invloved fire. Everything is so smokey. LOL. But Kindall has it right with making your mask right for you with that kit. (Get permision before you do that to company equipment.) Vol. will let you get your feet wet. Then you can decide from there. Wish you luck in your pursuit of happiness.
Well I'll throw in my $.02 here too. My vision isn't too bad, I have astigmatism which makes things fuzzy at any distance. When I did interior firefighting I had prescription lenses mounted inside my facepiece and it worked OK. But facepieces get fogged up often either inside or out so it doesn't make much difference anyways. Unless you are extremely nearsighted you can get away without glasses.

If you want to be a career FF then there may be vision restrictions that vary from department to department. But by all means go for it!

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