I retired from our volunteer department one year ago. I encourage everyone to look into what's involved. Most people see firefighting as this dangerous activity. While it can be, the training is spectacular and reduces risks dramatically.

More importantly for the risk averse, there are many tasks that have very low or even negligible risk by nature. Communications, logistics, pump operations, driving, equipment and hall maintenance, extinguishing hot spots after the fire is over, traffic control, IT support. In a decade of service, I never once found myself on the front lines, because I focused on support roles that would have otherwise taken less risk averse people off the front lines.

And for the women out there, our department has had female members continuously since the mid-1980s, many of whom have served on the front lines.