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Service and sales workers · code 5411

Fire-fighters

Firefighters prevent, fight and extinguish fires and assist in other emergencies, protect life and property and conduct rescue efforts. Tasks include - (a) responding to fire alarms and other calls for assistance, such as automobile and industrial accidents, bomb threats and other emergencies; (b) controlling and extinguishing fires using manual and power equipment and firefighting chemicals; (c) fighting special types of fires and using special equipment in industrial establishments; (d) rescuing people from burning buildings and accident sites and those trapped in dangerous situations; (e) preventing or limiting the spread of dangerous substances in case of fires or accidents; (f) informing the public about fire prevention. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Firefighter - Forest firefighter Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Fire inspector - 3112 - Fire prevention specialist - 3112 - Fire investigator - 3119

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 122 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • firefighter

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

81.7
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 18.3 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 18.3 = 81.7

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

67.8
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs

47
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 42 · hand skill 44.7 · cramped spaces 54.2 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · caring 4+ of 7 Hands-on, helping and caring for others

Physical work where helping and caring for people is a big part of the job. For care work, whether a machine could do the movements is only half the question. The other half is whether anyone wants one to. The US data counts helping workmates too, so a few trades end up here.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

This number is probably too high

This score only looks at AI tools like chatbots. It doesn't look at robots at all — and this job rates 67.8 out of 100 for how hands-on it is, which is exactly where robots come in.

Have a look at the tasks below and judge for yourself. The ILO scored them low because a chatbot can't do them. Whether a machine with hands could is a different question, and we can't answer it yet.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 36, while the average is 18.3. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 36

    Informing the public about fire prevention.

    Low
  2. 23.3

    Preventing or limiting the spread of dangerous substances in case of fires or accidents

    Very Low
  3. 15

    Responding to fire alarms and other calls for assistance, such as automobile and industrial accidents, bomb threats and other emergencies

    Very Low
  4. 13.8

    Controlling and extinguishing fires using manual and power equipment and fire-fighting chemicals

    Very Low
  5. 13.5

    Fighting special types of fires and using special equipment in industrial establishments

    Very Low
  6. 8.5

    Rescuing people from burning buildings and accident sites and those trapped in dangerous situations

    Very Low

6 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
51
AI does it for you
18

Helping wins by 33 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 4412

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” group, averaging 74.2. This one is above that.