Who Are the Highest Paid Firefighters in Shreveport?

SHREVEPORT, LA - Fire departments from all regions in Louisiana are battling to find new recruits. Fewer and fewer people are choosing a career in emergency response these days. We know about the shortage facing police departments, but we don't hear as much about the shortage of firefighters.

Shreveport has 538 employees in the fire department, but they continue to search for new recruits. Checking out the list of salaries for Shreveport firefighters, we find several starting firefighters make under $35,000 a year. That's not really a competitive salary for such an important job. If you do the math, that's about $16.50 an hour. That's quite surprising when you consider many fast food restaurants are now having to pay workers $12-$15 dollars an hour to keep them on the job.

What's the Average Salary for Firefighters in Louisiana?

When we checked out the average salaries for firefighters in Louisiana, it's about $42,000. Ziprecruiter says only 7 states in the country have lower average salaries for firefighers.

KEEL News requested the list of salaries for all fire department employees and we found dozens of firefighters making more than $90,000 dollars, but most of them have been on the force for more than 25 years and are eligible to retire at any time.