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What Are Your Views On Women Firefighters?
How do you see them in the line of fire? What are your opinions and veiws?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Billy Dale Smith on
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If it weren't for the women on our dept. (approx. 50% of our firefighters) we wouldn't have much of a fire dept. The women train just as hard or harder. I very proud of all of our female firefighters.
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Permalink Reply by John S-B on
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Our dept. got smart and started recruiting at places where you can find more women that are up to the physical task of firefighting, at college campuses and the military. A lot of women just aren't physically strong enough for some of the work that's true, but some of the men aren't there either. As long as the standards aren't lowered, women can do the job.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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I knew the "so what" was going to bite me in the ass... I said that after reading discussions about how some firefighters pick and choose what they want to do which still totally blows me away. It never occurred to me that a firefighter would not do something because they don't like it. Maybe a safety concern, but to turn down a direct order on the fireground?
We are talking male firefighters here, not female. Because of the challenge / have to prove themselves thing, women seldom will say that they won't or can't do something. Again, generalizing, folks that are not built like line backers, and this includes both men and women, learn to adapt due to size and strength deficits. The job gets done, hence my comment so what...
The time frame noted for a women's increased olfactory senses just happens to be the same time frame that a woman would be employed by the fire department. My focusing on this point was to bring to light an advantage for folks to both be aware of and use to their benefit. It's all about the senses. Does this make sense? If it doesn't, so what... :D lol
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Jack, There is a key difference when discussing venting roofs, advancing line, etc. when we are trying to compare your department and what you do for a living, day in and day out to others here on the FFN. You work where there are actually real fires... Not a rural volunteer fire department with a minimal call load, but the real deal. In your world, a firefighter that does not possess appropriate physical capabilities might be looked upon as more of a liability.
With that said, and not being from a large metro firefighter like yourself, I have the impression that in larger departments, strength may not always be a factor. It appears that you have so many available personnel responding and involved, that many of the tasks are not as intense compared to a more rural department that has to do more with less. And in some situations, for these departments, how hard is it to connect to a water supply, surround and drown?
Most of the runs we have do not involve structure fires, but instead are mostly medical. I don't think we are much different than many other departments. What we do have to deal with that you do not are intense wildland fires that dictate a high degree of physical shape, not strength so much, but endurance.
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Permalink Reply by WestPhilly on
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"Does this make sense?" Not really. Hardly anything coming from the left coast makes sense to me. (It's probably me.)
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Permalink Reply by Jason Hudson on
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In my dept. we have 1 lady firefighter, actually no we don't, because we as a whole treat her as 1 of the guys and thats the way it should be in my mind. You see she is not only a firefighter but a operator and a medical first responder, and she can take a joke and give them just as good. In the past we have other female members in our dept., but due to moves that they had no control over(jobs, school etc...) we are left with 1 and I would stand with her in any emergency that arose.
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This makes no sense to me either. (Again, it's probably me.)
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Permalink Reply by Mary Ellen Shea on
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hmmmm.....women.....as firefighters....
Novel concept.
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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CBz,
I wish I was in a large, busy metro department, in reality we're a small (but affluent) suburban one. We might get a few good working fires a year (in our town) with the rest cooking/room and contents, which are knocked down quickly. We don't do ems so our 750+ calls per year are just fire calls, with everything from (honestly) cat in the tree to MCI's, explosives and even the occasional suspicious item/powder etc.
However, given the vagaries of the job, all are expected to perform at any level. You may ride in on the engine but be assigned to do truck work. So while brute physical strength may not be needed on a daily basis, comes a time (and it does) that it is required. So while most runs may amount to nothing, or not much, that can't be the driving force for lowered expectations in the form of reduced physical requirements. What happens when you find yourself staffed with a crew that, while fine for ems runs, just doesn't have what it takes for the real deal?
Justifying reduced physical ability based on the number and type of calls a department runs is counterproductive (and counter intuitive) to what a fire department is about. Even if a department sees only one working fire a year, is it really going to be their mission statement that they will make every effort to save the foundation (or slab)?
So the upshot of this whole discussion is (or should be, or is heading towards) the fact that to be a firefighter one should be able to do all aspects of the job, irrespective of what you might typically do on a day-to-day basis. So again, this is NOT a gender based issue, rather it is and will always be, one of necessary ability, which when the feces impacts the rotating impeller, brute strength over technique is going to be required. Can (or should) we offer our citizens any less than that?
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Permalink Reply by Jose A Echavarria on
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we have some in my town back in Dom. Rep. and for what i have seen they are as good as the men
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Are people still beating this horse. I have heard the same discussions when I served in the USAF over 35 yrs ago. We need to stop thinking that women cant do a job to how well they can do a job. I have meet some women during my time in the Air force and on different fire dept that were more than capable of doing the job. that said I have seen men that couldn't even begin to do the job.we currently have a female on our dept i would do an interior attack with. there again there are some guys I wouldn't. Everyone has different qualities and strengths it is up to those in charge to utilize those to the best of their ability. Gender should never play a factor. Ok off my soap box
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and vice versa... I look forward to someday soon visiting the left coast to figure out how you do things, and why they are so different...
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