Kind of a poll -
Are police and fire/ems personnel more likely to wear moustaches? Can any police/fire dopers here witness?
It occurred to me lately that on TV and in movies, these folks are often sporting the upper lip facial hair. I’ve noticed police and fire fighters in my area tend to have moustaches too - is this common in other areas?
In my experience police departments tend to impose a dress code on their police officers that includes no facial hair except a mustache. Given this I would suppose that many people that would otherwise grow a full beard or some other type of facial hair opt for a mustache rather than being clean shaven.
I am not sure, but I would think firemen and such would not wear facial hair so they can have a good seal with their breathing equipment? 
They are common because: 1) The various departments usualy have a very strict hair-length requirement, 2) the departments also forbid any facial hair that would interfere with a resperator mask, and 3) a mustache is macho.
That’s a big reason, yes. Anything more than a small goatee (and even then…) and you risk losing the seal.
SCBA are positive pressure inside the mask so there is always some leakage. Excessive facial hair would also be an issue with getting caught in tools or toasted off being in close proximity to flames. Long hair has a similar problem. Short hair is easily covered by the shroud on your helmet, excess is just waiting to be a fuse leading to your head.
You only go into a firefight with the shroud up once, your ears will take care of the reminders after that.
Long hair or beards of any significant length are also dangerous in the hand to hand fighting situations cops find themselves in quite often.
I work with cops a lot, and here’s another issue that factors into things: policemen need to have an authoritative bearing, and many of the new academy graduates are pretty young and baby-faced. On the street, they need to be taken seriously and not blown off as a kid in a uniform. As a result, they’ll often grow a mustache to look older and more imposing. Some just kinda keep it when they get older, or regrow one periodically.
Years ago, I was a volunteer fireman and a big old mustache was almost a requirement with the ticks (volunteers) and the paid firefighters. Beards were out because of the seal issue mentioned, but I had a cheesy 70s pornstar looking mustache and so did most of my friends.
That’s some good insight. I suspected it might have something to do with tradition, but it seems there’s practical reasons as well. Thanks!
Do you know that you actually wrote that where people could see it? 
Culturally speaking, there is a validity to “everyone else is doing it.” It may just persist in that arena because it is one where personal style is limited, longevity of the group members is common and it is a fairly closed society. Think of it like the Amish or any other culturally separate group.
Then again, maybe they like looking like the guy from the Village People.
By the way, I found this old thread .
(I did a search last night before I started this thread, but I spelled mustache with an ‘o’ and got no results)
This is essentially correct. It’s prohibited by OSHA, as firefighters have to take a fit test, to ensure their SCBA masks form a tight seal. A moustache, however, won’t affect the seal, so it’s allowed.
Both from here
I’m in total agreement with beards compromising the seal of an SCBA facepiece. I’ve had 2-day stubble and not passed an annual fit-test (I wanted to see if it really was true). I can only imagine what a beard would do to that seal.
As for moustaches, I have no idea why many firefighters have them. I refuse to grow one (too itchy, just doesn’t feel right), and catch a boat load of grief from the firefighters on my shift, all of whom have them. I’ve asked why they have them, and they don’t know. I suspect its a macho thing, “we’re tough firemens and thus require moustaches.”
I just like to go against the trend.
Police officers are required to have moustaches.
“Macho, macho man…”
It is so common that SNL did a skit on it. After swearing in the new cops they said heres your gun, heres your uniform, heres your mace, heres your mustache.They handed these item to them.
I’m a vol firefighter now. About 1/3 of my department (including me) has a beard of some type, all of them are short hair length. Since we’re all rednecks, the head hair tends to be short or non-existent.
Unless someone looks like Jerry Garcia or a member of ZZ Top, I don’t think there’d be much of a hair problem given our smoke hoods and SCBA masks.
Moustache, or mustacheo? :-{)
VunderBob are you getting annual fit tests? Those are tough to pass with any facial hair- like KCB615 said.