How Much Does a Firefighter Make? Pay by State and Percentile

How much does a firefighter make nationally?

BLS estimated about 345,990 wage and salary firefighters in May 2025. The median annual wage was $59,280, and the median hourly wage was $28.50 ^[1]. Median means the middle value: half of firefighters in the survey earned less than $59,280 and half earned more. The two medians line up arithmetically: $28.50 times 2,080 hours is $59,280. Firefighters often work 24-hour shifts rather than eight-hour days, so the hourly number is an annualized comparison, not what a paycheck divides into.

One caution on scope: OEWS covers wage and salary workers only. Self-employed people are not in it, and neither are unpaid volunteers, who make up a large part of the U.S. fire service. The U.S. Fire Administration registry summary for January 2024 counts 70.0% of registered departments as all volunteer ^[3]. Our how-to-become guide covers the volunteer and career split. The figures here describe paid firefighters.

What is the firefighter pay range?

The median is one point. OEWS also reports percentiles, which show how wide the range is ^[1]. A percentile is the pay level that a given share of workers earn below. The hourly column below is our own arithmetic, the annual figure divided by 2,080 hours, so it is an approximation for comparison.

Percentile (May 2025)	Annual pay	Approx. per hour (annual / 2,080)
10th	$34,910	$16.78
25th	$44,490	$21.39
Median (50th)	$59,280	$28.50
75th	$77,250	$37.14
90th	$101,040	$48.58

The top tenth earned about three times what the bottom tenth earned. That gap is mostly geography and employer type, not just seniority, as the next sections show. The gap between the median and the 75th percentile is $17,970, and the gap from the 75th to the 90th is $23,790, so pay rises faster toward the top of the range. The percentile pay is a snapshot of one survey year, not a forecast of what any new hire will be offered.

Which states pay firefighters the most and the least?

State medians from the same survey range widely ^[1]. New York had the highest median at $100,960, followed by Washington at $94,520, California at $85,120, New Jersey at $84,130 and Illinois at $78,380. The lowest were Louisiana at $33,120, Mississippi at $35,880, Kentucky at $37,150, West Virginia at $37,350 and North Carolina at $37,940. BLS did not publish a Hawaii figure for this occupation, so we do not estimate one.

Of the 50 states and districts with a published figure, 19 had a median above the $59,280 national median. Twelve had a median of $70,000 or more, 16 fell between $50,000 and $69,999, and 22 were below $50,000. In other words, the national median sits in the middle of a very wide spread, and a typical firefighter in many states is paid well above or well below it.

State median band (May 2025)	Number of states and districts
$70,000 or more	12
$50,000 to $69,999	16
Below $50,000	22

The spread between the top and bottom state is large: New York's $100,960 is about three times Louisiana's $33,120, a difference of $67,840 a year. Even within the top five, Illinois at $78,380 is $22,580 below New York. Neighboring states can also differ, so if you could work in more than one state, compare their medians individually rather than assuming a region sets pay.

Before you read these as a ranking of where to move, keep two caveats in mind. First, a higher wage often goes with a higher cost of living, so a $100,960 median in New York does not buy what the same amount buys in a lower-cost state. Second, the survey does not explain why a state is high or low, so do not read a state median as a promise about any one department. For every state side by side, use our salary by state tool.

How does firefighter pay compare with all jobs?

The firefighter median of $59,280 is above the all-occupations median of $50,980 in the same May 2025 survey ^[1], a difference of $8,300, or about 16% higher. At the top end, the firefighter 90th percentile of $101,040 is below the all-occupations 90th percentile of $128,560, and at the bottom the firefighter 10th percentile of $34,910 is above the all-occupations 10th percentile of $31,200. So firefighting pay is compressed compared with the economy as a whole: fewer very low pay levels, and fewer very high ones.

The comparison has limits. Firefighting is physically demanding and involves risk, long shifts, nights and weekends, and the median does not capture benefits such as pension plans, which many public departments offer and which differ widely by employer. If you are comparing public safety careers, the careers hub lists all the occupations we cover and our resources page points to official sources. Our EMT and police officer pages show the same OEWS figures for those jobs.

What moves a firefighter's pay?

The survey reports a pay level, not the reasons behind it, so this section sticks to factors that are well documented rather than invented averages.

• Where the department is. As the state chart shows, location is the biggest visible factor.
• Rank and years of service. Fire departments commonly use pay steps and promotion ranks. Each department or union contract publishes its own schedule, and those schedules are the reliable source for your pay.
• Certifications. Many departments pay differently for paramedics than for EMTs or may add pay for specialty qualifications. Check the department's posted pay plan.
• Shift schedule. Departments use different rotations. A Texas fire captain's paper in the U.S. Fire Administration's Executive Fire Officer program looks at a department moving from a 24 hours on, 48 hours off rotation to a 48 hours on, 96 hours off rotation, so both patterns are in use ^[4].
• Overtime. The same paper asked other departments that had made that switch about overtime costs. Of 21 respondents who answered, 11 reported no change, 8 reported a decrease, and 2 reported an increase for other known reasons. That is a small, informal survey of individual departments, not a national finding, but it shows overtime depends on local staffing and scheduling. Because OEWS reports wage rates, firefighters who work extra shifts may earn more in a year than the survey median suggests. We cannot say by how much, because the data does not show it.
• Employer and contract. Budgets and bargaining agreements shape pay, and they differ by city, county and fire district.

Pay rules also change over time. A union contract can add raises or change step schedules, and a state or city budget can freeze hiring, so a posting from a past year may not match today's offer. Check the date on any pay schedule before you rely on it, and prefer the department's own site or the employer's HR page over third-party pay summaries.

Treat any single department's posting as the best evidence for what you would be paid. Salaries, steps and overtime rules are usually listed in the job announcement or the collective bargaining agreement.

Hourly pay or annual pay: which number should you use?

Both are in the survey. The $28.50 hourly median and the $59,280 annual median describe the same middle worker, expressed two ways. For a firefighter on a 24-hour shift rotation, the annual number is usually the more useful one, because a shift covers many hours that are not all spent on active calls, and departments commonly quote pay by pay period or by annual step. Use the hourly figure only to compare firefighting with jobs that are paid by the hour.

Two other points help when you read pay posts. First, OEWS is a survey of employers in May 2025, so recent contract raises may already put current pay above these figures. Second, OEWS medians describe all firefighters in a state together, including large city departments and small ones, so the median for your own city may sit well above or below the state number.

What is the job outlook?

O*NET OnLine projects average growth of 3% to 4% for firefighters from 2025 to 2035 ^[2]. With about 345,990 paid firefighters in the OEWS count, even slow growth plus retirements means departments hire regularly, but openings depend on local budgets, and hiring often happens in windows. That is another reason to compare postings rather than lean on a national average.

How do you get into a firefighter job?

In short, you meet the department's basic requirements, earn any certification it asks for (often an EMT certification), pass written and physical tests and screening, complete a fire academy and serve a probationary period. The full steps, tests and timeline are in our guide on how to become a firefighter.