The present study explores emotional intelligence and proactive coping as possible protective factors for both a group of paid-professional firefighters (n = 94) and a group of similar comparison participants (n = 91). Each respondent completed the Impact of Events Scale-Revised, Symptom Checklist 90-Revised, Emotional Intelligence Scale, and Proactive Coping Scale. Using an exploratory/liberal Type 1 error rate ([alpha] less than or equal to 0.10), our results suggested that for firefighters emotional intelligence negatively predicted self-reported traumatic stress ([beta] = -0.198), while proactive coping negatively predicted several other mental health symptoms (obsessive-compulsive [beta] = -0.192, depression [beta] = -0.220, anxiety [beta] = -0.295). For the comparison participants, the pattern of results was substantially different from the firefighters in that emotional intelligence negatively predicted several mental health symptoms (interpersonal sensitivity [beta] = -0.465, depression [beta] = -0.239, anxiety [beta] = -0.269, hostility [beta] = -0.349) and proactive coping only predicted a lack of psychoticism ([beta] = -0.216). (Contains 3 tables.)