Career Escape
Moving from firefighter to hazardous materials removal worker, by the occupational data
Both occupations are described by the same O*NET 30.3 rating system, which makes them directly comparable: the same requirements, rated for each. What follows is that comparison for firefighters and Hazardous Materials Removal Workers, not an opinion about whether the move is a good idea.
Can a firefighter become a hazardous materials removal worker?
The overlap here is narrower than the two job titles suggest: 54% of what O*NET 30.3 rates as important to either occupation is important to both. The requirements that carry across include Repairing and Maintaining Mechanical Equipment, Operating Vehicles, Mechanized Devices, or Equipment, Transportation. Both sit at O*NET Job Zone 3, so the typical education, training and experience expected is the band you are already in. BLS does not publish a typical entry-education category for one of these occupations. What would be new concentrates in transferable skills: Quality Control Analysis. BLS puts the 2025 national median wage for hazardous materials removal workers at $49,450 against $59,280 for firefighters, a difference of 17% downward at the occupational level rather than for any individual move. BLS projects employment in the destination occupation to grow 1.5% between 2025 and 2035, with about 4,300 openings a year on average. O*NET describes the destination as follows: Identify, remove, pack, transport, or dispose of hazardous materials, including asbestos, lead-based paint, waste oil, fuel, transmission fluid, radioactive materials, or contaminated soil. This compares two occupations, not two people, and says nothing about whether any individual would be hired.
- Weighted overlap
- 54% of the requirements important to either occupation are important to both, with 2 of those shared requirements classed as distinctive rather than near-universal.
- Preparation level
- O*NET Job Zone 3, against Job Zone 3 for firefighters. Not published.
- Typical entry education (BLS)
- Not published by BLS for this occupation.
- Prior experience typically expected
- Not published by BLS for this occupation.
- Where the overlap is strongest
- Knowledge, with 2 distinctive requirements important to both. Requirements that carry over include Repairing and Maintaining Mechanical Equipment, Operating Vehicles, Mechanized Devices, or Equipment, Transportation.
- Independent corroboration
- O*NET separately lists this occupation as directly related to 1 of the occupations in this source set, which is a signal independent of the overlap measure.
Source and method
O*NET 30.3 Database, with BLS Employment Projections Table 5.4. Verified 2026-09-02. Importance ratings, Job Zones and occupational titles are read from O*NET. Typical entry education, prior experience and on-the-job training are read from BLS. The weighted overlap percentage, the distinctive-requirement counts, and the shared and new requirement lists are computed by RoleSprint from those inputs using the method published at /career-change/methodology.
Career transition data
Firefighter to Hazardous Materials Removal Workers
- Work activities overlapderived
- 65%
- Knowledge overlapderived
- 41%
- Transferable skills overlapderived
- 60%
- Essential skills overlapderived
- 72%
- Job Zone
- 3 to 3 (no change)
- Median annual wage, 2025
- $59,280 to $49,450
- Wage differencederived
- −$9,830 (−17%)
- Projected employment change, 2025–35
- +1.5%
- Annual openings, 2025–35 average
- 4,300
Largest transferable capability: Performing General Physical Activities
Largest new demand: Quality Control Analysis
Source. Job Zone and requirement ratings: O*NET 30.3. Wage, employment projections, openings and entry education: BLS Employment Projections Table 1.2, projections 2025–35, wage year 2025. RoleSprint-derived. Overlap percentages and the wage difference are calculated by RoleSprint from those published values. Limitation. These are national occupational statistics for two occupations. The wage figure is not a salary you would be offered, employment growth is not job security, and overlap is not a likelihood of being hired. Fields BLS does not publish for an occupation are omitted rather than estimated.
What carries over
Requirements O*NET rates as important for both firefighters and hazardous materials removal workers, by domain. Most distinctive first, so the top of each list is the part that is actually worth putting on a resume.
Work activities
27 of 36 work activities important to either occupation are important to both.
- Repairing and Maintaining Mechanical Equipment3.7 for firefighters, 3.1 here
- Operating Vehicles, Mechanized Devices, or Equipment4.5 for firefighters, 3.1 here
- Controlling Machines and Processes4.0 for firefighters, 3.2 here
- Handling and Moving Objects4.2 for firefighters, 3.8 here
- Performing General Physical Activities4.3 for firefighters, 3.9 here
Knowledge
7 of 14 knowledge areas important to either occupation are important to both.
- Transportation3.4 for firefighters, 3.4 here
- Building and Construction4.0 for firefighters, 3.2 here
- Public Safety and Security4.5 for firefighters, 3.6 here
- Mechanical3.8 for firefighters, 3.1 here
- Administration and Management3.4 for firefighters, 3.5 here
Transferable skills
7 of 10 transferable skills important to either occupation are important to both.
- Operation and Control3.3 for firefighters, 3.4 here
- Operations Monitoring3.3 for firefighters, 3.3 here
- Social Perceptiveness3.4 for firefighters, 3.0 here
- Complex Problem Solving3.3 for firefighters, 3.0 here
- Time Management3.1 for firefighters, 3.0 here
Essential skills
6 of 7 essential skills important to either occupation are important to both.
- Active Learning3.5 for firefighters, 3.0 here
- Reading Comprehension3.1 for firefighters, 3.1 here
- Monitoring3.5 for firefighters, 3.6 here
- Critical Thinking3.9 for firefighters, 3.5 here
- Speaking3.5 for firefighters, 3.1 here
Numbers are O*NET Importance, on a 1 to 5 scale. A requirement counts as important at 3.0 and above, which is the threshold the whole comparison uses.
What would be new
Requirements important for hazardous materials removal workers and not important for firefighters. This is the part you would have to be able to evidence, and it is usually the real obstacle rather than the job title.
Transferable skills
1 transferable skills rated important here and not for firefighters.
- Quality Control Analysis3.0 here, 2.9 for firefighters
Essential skills
1 essential skills rated important here and not for firefighters.
- Writing3.0 here, 2.9 for firefighters
Practical caveats for this move
Specific to this pair, and worth reading before treating any of the above as a plan.
- Hazardous Materials Removal Workers sits at the same Job Zone as firefighters, so the typical preparation band does not change. That removes one obstacle and none of the others.
- BLS records no prior experience in a related occupation as typical for this role, which makes the requirement lists above the more useful guide to what a posting will ask for.
- O*NET independently lists this as a related occupation, so two separate parts of the dataset agree that the work is adjacent.
- None of this accounts for licensing, geography, pay, hiring volume, or whether you would want the work. Occupational data describes the job. It does not describe the market for it, and it does not describe you.
How this move compares with the alternatives
This page is one move. The Opportunity Atlas puts every destination mapped from firefighters side by side on skills overlap, day-to-day work, wage, projected growth, openings and the size of the training step.
It does not rank them, because the dimensions genuinely disagree: measured across every transition published here, how much your skills carry over and how much your knowledge carries over are close to unrelated. You choose which one matters and it orders by that.
Compare the alternatives in the Opportunity AtlasThe destination occupation, as O*NET describes it
Identify, remove, pack, transport, or dispose of hazardous materials, including asbestos, lead-based paint, waste oil, fuel, transmission fluid, radioactive materials, or contaminated soil. Specialized training and certification in hazardous materials handling or a confined entry permit are generally required. May operate earth-moving equipment or trucks.
O*NET-SOC 47-4041.00. Full title: Hazardous Materials Removal Workers. Where this page uses the shorter phrase “hazardous materials removal worker”, that is a common name for readability, not a separate occupational classification.
This page includes information from the O*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. RoleSprint has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. Analysis generated 2026-09-02 from the O*NET 30.3 Database. Entry education, work experience, and on-the-job training are reproduced from BLS Employment Projections Table 5.4, Education and training assignments by detailed occupation, 2024, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What to do next
Occupational data compares two jobs. It cannot tell you whether one specific employer would consider you, and this is the point where most people stop reading data and start applying blind.