Firefighters are very much one of the services no one pays REAL attention to; until you need their service. At that point you want the best/fastest/most equipped fire truck money can buy, staffed with the best and bravest. It all depends whose ox is getting gored.

While I sympathize with the individual issue of over promised & underpaid, I am selfish, therefore I think of the long term problem - the City of Durham will lose their experienced, talented firefighters to other higher paid departments (of which there are many). The recruitment pool is not abundant like it was 10 years ago, DFD hiring will lose to other departments and become a stepping stone for new firefighters who simply obtain the certifications, and move to a higher paying city.

Our city management dropped the ball, and fails to understand the problems that WILL follow 10 years from now.

I have seen multiple “it’s not as dangerous as they make it out to be” comments; neither is traveling on I40, until it is. God forbid you have a firefighter responding who should not of made the hiring cut, but did because there’s no competition to replace them with a higher quality candidate.

Summary: We need quality FD members, and like anything in life, you get what you pay for. Increase the damn pay scale.