I recently found out on r/English (*[Is “smoke diver” in common vocabulary?](https://www.reddit.com/r/ENGLISH/comments/13gi4qa/is_smoke_diver_in_common_vocabulary/)*) that English does not have a separate term for the firefighter tasked with entering a smoke-filled building (of course wearing specialised gear and breathing apparatus).
In Swedish (and Norwegian plus Finnish) we have the term “smoke diver” in the common vocabulary, which can be understood by anyone you meet on the street.
In a normal newspaper you can often read:
> *According to the emergency services, a stairwell on Oak Street has been filled with black smoke and [smoke divers] have entered the building.*
Does your language have a term with similar meaning?
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For anyone wondering, the word in Swedish is “rökdykare”
Never heard of one, but I’m not that familiar with fire service lingo.
In Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and surely some more that I can’t tell, firemen are not usually called anything related to fire but about the pumps they use to supply the water. Bomberos, Pompiers… from bomba, pompe…
Edit: added “usually”
Nope, but being a diver, I approve of smoke diving. Badass.
In German that would be the Angriffstrupp, that is the firefighters who fist take the flames and do search and rescue for eventual victims. We also have a Wassertrupp and a Sicherheitstrupp. The Wassertrupp makes sure that the hoses are set up and enough water goes through them. The Sicherheitstrupp is in readiness in case the Angriffstrupp gets into trouble
No such term in Dutch as far as I know. Just generic ‘brandweerman’, which I would roughly translate to ‘fire protection man’
I think i have heard the term ”Savusukeltaja” which i’m guessing was originally just directly translated from Swedish.
But it’s not a common occurance.
Edit: apparently it is common. I just don’t really interact with firemen.
I’ve heard the term smoke eater in America, but as a whole I don’t believe there’s a distinction. A fire fighter is a fire fighter.
No such distinction in the US.
We do have the phrase “smoke jumper”. That is specially trained forest fire fighters who parachute in. There are also “hotshots” who are are the same, but they hike in.
In polish firefighters don’t even have the word fire in their name, they’re called strażak which comes from the word straż (pożarna) which means (fire)guard/watch
So they’re just guards that work for the fireguard I guess
All U.K. firefighters are trained in BA (breathing apparatus), and to enter smoke filled buildings – certainly was the case when my dad was one
Nope. But I have a friend (we’re American) who said he had a badass old Captain who would walk into a fire with no gear on, and come out smoking a cigar!
I can’t think of one in French, so if it exists, it would be a specialized word. The word for firefighters is “pompier” which means “a man operating a (water) pump”. It’s not related to fire per se. There is also a poetic expression “soldat du feu” (fire soldier), used for instance to avoid repeating pompier in a sentence.
The job of firefighter is most often referred to as “sapeur-pompier” (sapper / pump operator) as it is the official naming. Sapper is a military term meaning engineers who work on the terrain and tunnels etc.
Yeah, they’re called firefighters and it’s enough. Entering smoke and burning buildings is literally in the job description among others. That’s what they train for
Icelandic has *reykkafari*, literally “smoke diver”.
I’ve heard the term “smoke eater” in Chicago Fire TV show, but never anywhere else. I’m British and we just use firefighters, or firemen if you’re old fashioned.
My dad got trained as a rökdykare when he got certified to run the steam enginge on a ship