City of Philadelphia / Pfd Fire / Fire Captain
Job-title file
Fire Captain
Respond to fires and emergencies, perform rescue and medical aid, and carry out prevention and inspection.
143 employees hold this title in Pfd Fire. Median total compensation for the role is $52,976, above the department median of $33,557.
- Employees
- 143
- Total payroll
- $8.6M
- Role median
- $52,976
- Agency median
- $33,557
- Comparison
- Above
What the records show
Role pay distribution
Pay distribution for this role
How total compensation varies among the 143 people in this role. Even for one job title, pay differs with seniority, step, overtime, and tenure. Each bar is a pay range; the far-right bar collects the highest earners.
Compared with the local labor market
Fire Captain pay vs. the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD area
Across all employers in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD area, the median wage for First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers — about 950 people — is $101,050. Pfd Fire pays a median base salary of $27,184 for this role, 73% below that figure — below the 10th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Pfd Fire sits in the local pay range
The bar is the range of annual wages for First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers across every employer in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD area, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Pfd Fire’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers — about 99,140 people — is $93,530. Pfd Fire’s median base salary is 71% below that national figure, below the 10th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 116 of 143 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Pfd Fire is $52,976, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare jurisdictions
Fire Captain beyond City of Philadelphia
This role is reported in 19 jurisdictions. In City of Philadelphia, the median of $52,976 ranks #18 of 19. See Fire Captain across all of City of Philadelphia →
Highest-paying jurisdictions for this role
Median total compensation for comparable Fire Captainroles in other jurisdictions. Titles are matched by normalized name across sources, not identical job classification, and pay is not cost-of-living adjusted. Each bar links to that jurisdiction’s page for the role.
Record list
Employees with this title
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