Top 12 Fireman Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a sharp, convincing resume as a firefighter isn’t a laundry list exercise. It’s about surfacing the skills that prove you can think fast under pressure, work clean in chaos, and bring people home safe. When you lay out the right capabilities—clearly, confidently—you signal readiness, grit, and good judgment to the chiefs reading your file.

Firefighter Skills

1. CPR Certified
2. AED Operation
3. SCBA Proficiency
4. Fire Dynamics
5. Hazardous Materials
6. Incident Command
7. Fire Prevention
8. Emergency Driving
9. Water Rescue
10. Rope Rescue
11. Thermal Imaging
12. Wildland Firefighting

1. CPR Certified

CPR certification confirms you’ve been trained and tested in high-performance cardiopulmonary resuscitation—compressions that are deep and fast, coordinated breaths when needed, and seamless teamwork during cardiac arrest events.

Why It's Important

Cardiac arrests don’t wait. Strong CPR buys time and blood flow, raises survival odds, and bridges the patient to defibrillation and advanced care.

How to Improve CPR Certified Skills

Keep skills sharp and the muscle memory sticky.

1. Refresh often: Take frequent update courses aligned with current science; practice pit-crew CPR and team choreography.

2. Drill with feedback: Use manikins that report depth, recoil, and rate so your technique stays on target.

3. Train for reality: Rotate compressors, minimize pauses, practice hands-off time reductions, and rehearse transitions with AED use.

4. Work the basics under stress: Metronomes, noisy environments, cramped spaces—simulate the messy scenes you’ll face.

5. Teach to learn: Running public demos or training new members reinforces your own precision.

How to Display CPR Certified Skills on Your Resume

2. AED Operation

AED operation means swift assessment, pads on clean dry skin, no-shock hazards cleared, follow prompts, resume compressions instantly, and continue through return of spontaneous circulation or transfer of care.

Why It's Important

Early defibrillation is a life-changer. When VF/VT hits, seconds are loud. An AED shortens the gap between collapse and shock.

How to Improve AED Operation Skills

1. Repetition: Run timed AED drills until pad placement and pause-free switching feel automatic.

2. Readiness checks: Verify battery, pads, and access during daily apparatus checks; document and rotate supplies before they age out.

3. Clear roles: Assign compressor, airway, AED operator, and recorder in drills so scenes flow without collisions.

4. Post-incident reviews: Debrief every use—compressor swaps, shock decision times, and interruptions—then close gaps fast.

5. Public-located AEDs: Know where they live in your district; preplan large venues for quickest routes.

How to Display AED Operation Skills on Your Resume

3. SCBA Proficiency

SCBA proficiency means you can don, doff, operate, troubleshoot, conserve air, and handle emergencies with your respiratory protection while moving, working, and thinking inside the hot zone.

Why It's Important

Air is life. In smoke and toxic byproducts, proper SCBA use keeps your head clear and your body working.

How to Improve SCBA Proficiency Skills

1. Timed drills: Practice donning, seal checks, and tool handoff until it’s quick and precise.

2. Air management: Track consumption, communicate remaining pressure, and plan egress at one-third rules; practice controlled breathing under workload.

3. Emergency procedures: Entanglement, reduced profile, low-air alarms, regulator malfunctions, and Mayday—rehearse until reflexive.

4. Familiarity: Know your model’s features, bypass valve behavior, HUD, and cylinder specs; inspect and maintain diligently.

5. Fitness: Cardio and functional strength reduce consumption and fatigue.

6. After-action learning: Capture lessons from every drill and incident; adjust tactics and habits.

How to Display SCBA Proficiency Skills on Your Resume

4. Fire Dynamics

Fire dynamics explores ignition, growth, flow paths, fuel types, ventilation effects, and how a structure and its contents push heat and smoke.

Why It's Important

When you can read a building’s behavior, you make sharper choices—cooling before entry, door control, smarter ventilation, safer crews.

How to Improve Fire Dynamics Skills

1. Modern fire behavior: Study ventilation-limited fires, flow-path control, and coordinated attack timing.

2. Live-fire and simulation: Blend acquired-structure burns with realistic sims to test tactics in changing conditions.

3. Thermal cues: Interpret smoke color, velocity, volume, and density; forecast flashover warnings and collapse indicators.

4. Integrate tech: Pair thermal imaging with water application strategy; verify results with temperature and smoke changes.

5. Debrief rigorously: Walk through tactical choices post-incident; anchor your decisions to observed behavior.

How to Display Fire Dynamics Skills on Your Resume

5. Hazardous Materials

Hazardous materials include chemicals, gases, biological agents, and radiological sources that can harm people, property, and the environment.

Why It's Important

HazMat scenes punish guessing. Identification, isolation, protective equipment, and disciplined operations prevent bad days from getting worse.

How to Improve Hazardous Materials Skills

1. Tiered training: Refresh Awareness, Operations, and Technician-level competencies; practice size-up using the ERG and placard systems.

2. Zone discipline: Establish hot, warm, and cold zones; control access and track accountability relentlessly.

3. Detection and monitoring: Drill with multi-gas meters, pH paper, and photoionization detectors; know limitations and calibration routines.

4. PPE mastery: Match ensemble to hazard; practice don/doff, decon, and emergency doffing safely.

5. Decontamination: Set up corridor decon quickly; manage runoff and secondary contamination; document exposures.

6. ICS alignment: Use a clear command structure with technical specialists, unified command when needed, and precise comms.

How to Display Hazardous Materials Skills on Your Resume

6. Incident Command

Incident Command is the system that organizes people, resources, and tactics so operations run safely and coherently from size-up to demobilization.

Why It's Important

Clear command calms chaos—communication tightens, risk drops, and objectives actually get met.

How to Improve Incident Command Skills

1. Build the structure: Use NIMS/ICS, maintain span of control, and assign divisions/groups early.

2. Think on paper: Write quick Incident Action Plans, set measurable objectives, and update them as conditions evolve.

3. 360 and benchmarks: Complete a 360 when possible; announce conditions, actions, needs, and time-based benchmarks.

4. Radio discipline: Brief, plain language, confirmed orders; manage channels and enforce check-backs.

5. Accountability: Track crews, work cycles, PARs, rehab, and RIT readiness; never lose track of people.

6. After-action reviews: Capture what worked, what stalled, and why; update SOPs and training plans accordingly.

How to Display Incident Command Skills on Your Resume

7. Fire Prevention

Fire prevention blends inspections, education, and code enforcement to keep fires from starting and to limit their bite when they do.

Why It's Important

The safest fire is the one that never ignites. Prevention protects families, businesses, and responders.

How to Improve Fire Prevention Skills

1. Community education: Teach smoke alarm placement, home escape plans, cooking safety, space-heater rules, and lithium-ion battery precautions.

2. Home safety visits: Identify hazards like overloaded circuits, missing alarms, blocked exits, and improper storage of combustibles.

3. Codes and compliance: Enforce modern building and fire codes—sprinklers, detection, egress, and clear fire lanes.

4. WUI hardening: For wildland-urban interface areas, promote defensible space, ember-resistant vents, and noncombustible zones.

5. Business outreach: Support evacuation drills, extinguisher training, and inspection follow-ups with local businesses and schools.

6. Seasonal messaging: Target risks by season—holiday lights, fireworks, brush clearing, generator safety.

How to Display Fire Prevention Skills on Your Resume

8. Emergency Driving

Emergency driving is operating apparatus under lights-and-siren conditions—fast when warranted, but always with due regard and strict adherence to policy and law.

Why It's Important

Getting there matters. Getting there safely matters more.

How to Improve Emergency Driving Skills

1. EVOC training: Practice braking, cornering, skid control, and spatial awareness with your actual apparatus.

2. Intersections: Treat every intersection as hostile—full stops when required, lane-by-lane clearing, and eye contact with drivers.

3. Vehicle knowledge: Understand weight, stopping distance, pump engagement, and aerial limitations.

4. Policy discipline: Follow SOPs for speed, passing, escorting, convoy rules, and blackout driving when appropriate.

5. Back safely: Use spotters, cameras, and standard signals; never guess what you can’t see.

6. Maintenance: Daily checks—tires, brakes, lights, sirens, fluids—record and repair defects immediately.

How to Display Emergency Driving Skills on Your Resume

9. Water Rescue

Water rescue covers operations in rivers, lakes, flood zones, and ice—where moving water, cold, and unseen hazards complicate everything.

Why It's Important

Seconds slip away quickly in water. Trained, well-equipped teams make the difference.

How to Improve Water Rescue Skills

1. Safety first: PFDs on, helmets fitted, throw bags ready; never enter water without the right protection and a plan.

2. Reach-throw-row-go: Start with the least risky tactic; only commit swimmers when conditions, training, and command allow.

3. Swiftwater skills: Practice ferry angles, hydrology reading, foot entrapment avoidance, and tethered swimmer techniques.

4. Flood operations: Train for vehicle-in-water incidents, shallow-water crossings, and boat handling in debris fields.

5. Interagency drills: Work with lifeguards, law enforcement, and rescue boats; harmonize comms and signals.

How to Display Water Rescue Skills on Your Resume

10. Rope Rescue

Rope rescue uses rope systems, hardware, and rigging to move people and equipment safely in high-angle, low-angle, and confined environments.

Why It's Important

When stairs don’t exist and terrain says no, rope systems say yes—safely.

How to Improve Rope Rescue Skills

1. Core knots and anchors: Master figure 8 family, clove, munter, prusik, and reliable natural/artificial anchors with solid edge protection.

2. Mechanical advantage: Build and troubleshoot 3:1, 5:1, and twin-tensioned systems; balance haul and lower control.

3. Patient packaging: Train with litters, harnesses, and attendant positioning; manage hypothermia and airway as you move.

4. Hardware familiarity: Know the ratings and behavior of pulleys, descent devices, cams, and carabiners; inspect and log gear religiously.

5. Team choreography: Clear commands, belay checks, and stop calls; rehearse until everyone moves as one.

How to Display Rope Rescue Skills on Your Resume

11. Thermal Imaging

Thermal imaging cameras read heat signatures through smoke, guiding you to victims, hot spots, and safer paths.

Why It's Important

Seeing heat cuts guesswork. Faster searches, smarter cooling, better overhaul, fewer surprises.

How to Improve Thermal Imaging Skills

1. Search discipline: Use consistent scan patterns—high, mid, low—then confirm by touch; avoid tunnel vision.

2. Know limitations: Reflective surfaces lie, water cools readings, steam hides heat; trust trends, not single pixels.

3. Color palettes and modes: Learn your TIC’s thresholds and palettes so you can interpret scenes quickly.

4. Coordinate with attack: Pair TIC intel with nozzle work—read the ceiling, cool where it counts, verify with changing signatures.

5. Practice under stress: Zero-visibility drills with full PPE; scan, communicate, move, reassess.

How to Display Thermal Imaging Skills on Your Resume

12. Wildland Firefighting

Wildland firefighting tackles fires in forests, brush, and grass—dynamic terrain, shifting winds, and long operational periods.

Why It's Important

It protects communities, critical infrastructure, watersheds, and ecosystems, especially at the wildland-urban interface.

How to Improve Wildland Firefighting Skills

1. Fundamentals: Live LCES—lookouts, communications, escape routes, safety zones; know the watch-out situations and fire orders.

2. Line construction: Practice handline, dozer line, and hose lays; improve mop-up and cold-trailing techniques.

3. Weather and fuels: Read RH, winds, inversions, topography, and fuel models; anticipate afternoon changes.

4. WUI operations: Structure triage, defensible space, ember control, and coordinated firing operations with law and utilities.

5. Endurance and heat readiness: Condition for long shifts; hydrate, rehab, and monitor for heat illness.

How to Display Wildland Firefighting Skills on Your Resume