{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/firefighters/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Firefighters", "soc_code": "33-2011", "category": "Protective Service", "us_employment": 345990, "median_annual_wage": 59280 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 79, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 17, "embodiment": 20, "liability_shield": 10, "trust_premium": 15, "judgment_accountability": 17 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Pulling ceiling with a hook to chase fire in a void space, throwing a 24-foot ladder to a second-floor window, and dragging a 200-pound victim down a stairwell are irreducibly manual — the 17 rather than 20 reflects that pre-incident planning, hydrant/inspection data collection, and NFPA 1710 response-time analysis are genuinely being absorbed by software.", "embodiment": "You work in flashover-range heat on SCBA with 45 minutes of air, on pitched roofs, in confined spaces, and on highway shoulders cutting A-posts with hydraulics — there is no version of this scored below the ceiling.", "liability_shield": "Firefighter I/II and EMT or paramedic licensure are real credentials with real revocation risk on the patient-care side, but structural firefighting itself is performed under municipal sovereign immunity and departmental SOGs, so the personal legal exposure that puts a physician at 18 sits well below that for you.", "trust_premium": "Occupants let you into their homes at 3 a.m. and hand you their children on the word of the helmet alone, and community standing built through station visits and code inspections is why bond measures and staffing levels pass — but the specific person on the nozzle is interchangeable to the caller, which is what keeps this off 19.", "judgment_accountability": "The IC deciding to go defensive on a lightweight truss roof at minute twelve, or the company officer calling a mayday and abandoning a search, owns that call in the NIOSH LODD report and the after-action review; the 17 rather than 20 accounts for RECEO-VS, two-in/two-out, and ICS giving you more structure than a surgeon or a judge gets." }, "rationale": "The job is forcible entry, hose advancement, ventilation, search-and-rescue in zero-visibility smoke, vehicle extrication, and pre-hospital patient care — none of which robotics can do at cost in an uncontrolled, collapsing environment. AI genuinely eats the paperwork tier: incident reports, inspection write-ups, pre-plan documentation, dispatch triage support, and staffing schedules. Command decisions on scene — offensive vs. defensive attack, when to pull crews out — are exactly the high-stakes ambiguous calls a human is expected to own and be reviewed on.", "outlook": "Headcount is set by municipal budgets and union staffing rules rather than technology; expect AI to strip administrative hours and expand EMS and inspection duties while the core suppression role stays human.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Expansion of NFPA 1710/1720 minimum staffing benchmarks into binding state law or municipal charter language (as in some Florida and Illinois collective bargaining agreements, and the recurring federal 'Fire Department Safe Staffing' bills), making four-person engine crews and two-in/two-out a legally enforceable condition rather than a consensus standard, so headcount cannot be traded against technology", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State EMS licensure rules requiring a credentialed paramedic — not an AI protocol engine — to authorize and be personally accountable for drug administration and field termination-of-resuscitation decisions; several state EMS boards are already writing AI-decision-support language into protocol approval", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Post-incident review regimes that name the Incident Commander personally — NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation reports plus state OSHA citations for offensive-attack decisions in derelict structures — extended into criminal-negligence exposure for command calls, as attempted in some post-fire prosecutions abroad; formal ICS accreditation (Blue Card certification) spreading as a hiring requirement also fixes the accountable human", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift as the paperwork tier is genuinely automated: if inspection write-ups, NFIRS reporting and pre-plan documentation move to AI, the remaining job concentrates on interior operations and command, which are the tiers no model touches. This raises resistance without any new rule, but note it can also cut headcount in fire-prevention and inspector billets specifically", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 1 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Municipal referendum and union campaigns explicitly framing staffed engine companies as a public service voters fund (e.g. fire-district levy ballot measures in Washington and Oregon that specify apparatus staffing levels), plus ISO Public Protection Classification credits tied to on-duty personnel that translate directly into resident insurance premiums", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Already at 79 with embodiment maxed; realistic headroom is a few points on liability_shield. The genuine risk to this occupation is not AI substitution but municipal budget consolidation — station closures, brownouts, county mergers, and civilianization of inspection and prevention roles. Those cut jobs while every dimension score stays high, so the register will not register the loss." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 319860, "wage": 49080 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 321570, "wage": 49620 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 324620, "wage": 50850 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 311350, "wage": 52500 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 317310, "wage": 50700 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 321450, "wage": 51680 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 315460, "wage": 57120 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 332240, "wage": 59530 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 345990, "wage": 59280 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 8.2, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }