Warwick ranked among best communities to be a firefighter

Kelcy Dolan
Posted 6/30/15

Warwick was ranked the 26th best city to be a firefighter out of 322 in the nation in a study conducted by ValuePenguin.

ValuePenguin is a free comparative site, based out of New York, providing …

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Warwick ranked among best communities to be a firefighter

Posted

Warwick was ranked the 26th best city to be a firefighter out of 322 in the nation in a study conducted by ValuePenguin.

ValuePenguin is a free comparative site, based out of New York, providing customers with unbiased information on credit cards, to insurance, to make the best financial decisions they can.

Andrew Pentis, who conducted the study, looked at the median annual salary in all the departments, how affordable it is to live in the city the department is based, and a location quotient that measures “the concentration of firefighters in an area as a percentage of all occupations, and then compares that to the national average.”

Those cities with a higher location quotient theoretically have a greater demand for firefighters.

Combining these variables, taken from the latest report from Bureau of Labor Statistics, ValuePenguin came up with rankings for departments across America.
Pentis found that, on average, the 308,790 employed firefighters across the country earned $48,750 in 2014.

The information from Rhode Island was jointly submitted with Fall River and Providence who can also claim the 26th ranking.

The number one city to work for was Port St. Lucie, Florida, with an average salary of $62,640 and 610 jobs.

In comparison, Warwick, Providence and Fall River’s average $50,510, employing a collective around 2,000.

Three cities in Virginia – Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Radford – came in last with an annual average salary of $26,810 and only 40 jobs.

Although the study looked only at financial variables, William Lloyd, president of Warwick’s Firefighter Union, said there is more than just money that makes working for Warwick great.

Even as other departments in the state look to changes in their department, Lloyd said Warwick has a good system.

Other than being one of the higher paid departments in the state, Warwick remains with a 42-hour workweek with “floater employees” without permanent positions and schedules who work regular time when others are sick or take a vacation.

“There is more opportunity here,” Lloyd said. Because Warwick is a bigger city there are more calls and activity and employees have different fields they can enter, hazmat for example.

“This job goes beyond just regular fire calls here in Warwick,” he said. “If you wanted, you can get a lot of significant training in a bunch of different fields.

He said that overall firefighters are respected throughout Warwick and the city has “always been good about equipping us with the tools we need to do the job”

Lloyd said that people love working for this city and often leave other departments to come to Warwick.

To read the whole study, visit www.valuepenguin.com/2015/05/best-five-cities-firefighters.

Comments

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  • Thecaptain

    Too bad William Lloyd is a coward and resorts to contacting the employers of residents that speak out in Warwick, and makes threats of boycotts to corporations in an attempt to harass and sequester residents first amendment rights. Too bad Lloyd fails to return phone calls from the media to release the letter that he sent to the employer. What a guy!! A real "hero". Funny, now that the city actuary confirmed all of the findings that the resident put forth in his presentation. What are you going to do now Lloyd? Call for a boycott of Gabriel Rodder???

    By the way, Firefighter first class salary is $69,036 in Warwick.

    Tuesday, June 30, 2015 Report this

  • Daydreambeliever

    I'm shocked I only saw one comment so far. I was waiting or I still am to see this blow up as it usually does. Its amazing to never see anything and I mean anything written about the Warwick Police Department. I'm not saying there is any wrong doing there at all but are the bloggers here afraid of retaliation of some sort?

    It's always Municipal and Fire. Some of you are on point but others really should keep your opinions to a minimum because you take away the validity of the ones who make great points.

    Wednesday, July 1, 2015 Report this

  • Notbornyesterday

    The only comment is Captain Cote and he has ZERO impact on the community so in fine with it. Keep filming buddy.

    Wednesday, July 1, 2015 Report this

  • FASTFREDWARD4

    69 k is not a lot of money. Thank you

    Thursday, July 2, 2015 Report this

  • CameronClueless

    this story is so misleading and wrong, that the public should be insulted that it was even written

    Thursday, July 2, 2015 Report this

  • CameronClueless

    Warwick Watch https://www.facebook.com/WarwickWatch posted a fabulous rebuttal

    Thursday, July 2, 2015 Report this

  • Notbornyesterday

    Thank you Stacia.... Yes please step over to the Warwick Watch aka Facebook of lies page.... No facts just crap.

    Friday, July 3, 2015 Report this

  • RISchadenfreude

    Yup, yet the union will still wail and bawl that salaries and benefits aren't high enough and fight any effort to bring down costs to the taxpayer. It's a good town to work in, in part, due to the limited number of 3+ floor buildings and (comparably) financially and behaviorally stable population, which affords time for training that firefighters wouldn't have time for if they had more calls. I wonder how many of them would last a year in Providence, New Bedford, or NYC?

    Consider that the WPD receives about one call for service for every resident of the city annually, for everything from nuisance calls to homicides; the WFD gets called when there's a fire, vehicle accident, or medical emergency, for the most part (in all fairness, EMS/ALS calls and stats should be broken out from the fire department calls). I salute the police and firefighters, but let's not pat ourselves on the back with puff pieces like this and not tell the rest of the story.

    Wednesday, July 8, 2015 Report this