Women find their place among cities' fire personnel

June 1, 2006
By Mary Jimenez
maryjimenez@gannett.com

In a job that demands teamwork, gender is not the focus, say Shreveport firefighters Candi Snead, Capt. Barbara Sellers and Bossier Chief of Training Debbie Coker -- women firefighters who share the love of job in a male-dominated field.

"When the bell hits, business starts," said Sellers, who has been with the department for 16 years. "The No. 1 concept is team, not individual."

Snead agrees.

"Whatever emergency it is, it's a joint effort," said Snead, a fire driver with the department for 11 years. "Which is a good thing about this job, you're never on your own."

With 240 hours a month spent working together, male or female, the team becomes an extension of your family, added Sellers.

Shreveport hired its first woman career firefighter in 1981, with Bossier City following soon thereafter.

According to Women in the Fire Service Inc., a support organization formed in 1982, there were only an estimated 200 female firefighters nationwide at the time.

Today, Shreveport has 29 women, which represents 5 percent of the 528 career firefighters employed, and Bossier City has 10 women career firefighters out of the 222 employed in the department. They make up part of the 6,200 women firefighters nationwide, 2 percent of the nation's career firefighters.

Women are an indication of change that has been decades in the making, said Assistant Chief Brian Crawford, spokesman for the Shreveport Fire Department.

"For a number of years, fire departments across the country were discriminatory toward minorities and women," Crawford said. "But since the 1970s, with the inclusion of these groups, the department has seen firsthand their considerable value toward the organization."

A department that reflects the community it serves is the goal, explained Crawford.

"It's critical when we make an emergency call that our makeup reflects that of the community we serve," he said. "It also serves us in another critical way, recruitment. If you're Hispanic, black or a woman and all you see on a fire truck are white men, it's certainly not something that seems like an opportunity for you."

Women bring other benefits into the department.

"There's not a man on the department that isn't trained to handle sensitive issues, but there are certain runs the female presence is felt," said Sellers, giving examples of sexually abused victims or children. "If a victim feels better to have a woman there, then that's a benefit to the community."

The women realize they have changed fire station lifestyle, but added none of them ever experienced harsh resistance from the men. On the contrary, Coker says "the guys helped me a lot," and Sellers added she was treated like a lady from day one.

It was a relatively smooth transition, agrees Shreveport Assistant Chief Margene McCoy.
 

 

From
The Shreveport Times



 Shreveport firefighter Candi Snead backs a fire engine into the bay at Station 5 on Stoner Avenue during her 24-hour shift. (Shane Bevel/The Times)

"There might have been a little inconvenience, but it was no big deal," said McCoy, who has been with the department for 36 years. "They came in and did their job just like we did. If they didn't, we wouldn't have kept them."

McCoy knows the question most people want to ask.

"People always like to think about the showers and the sleeping arrangements, but we do the same thing you would do if your brother came to your house for a visit," said McCoy, adding that new fire stations are now built with separate shower and sleeping facilities.

Shreveport has four fire stations built with separate sleeping areas and bathrooms for women. Accommodations, considerations and locks are at the other 17 stations and firefighters say they just deal with it.

The women have learned to lock the door and the men "just learn to knock," said Shreveport firefighter James Pope, who worked with Snead recently at Fire Station No. 5 on Stoner Avenue.

There were women in the department when Pope joined eight years ago, so having a woman on his shift is part of the job he has taken for granted.

"There's a job to do. We have a job to do and so do they," Pope says, but that is not to say he and other firefighters do not notice a difference around the station when a woman is on shift.

"They do make the station smell better," he said.

Women also seem to bring and create a calmness in the station when they are there, added Captain Anthony Ford, also at Station No. 5. Ford joined the Shreveport department in 1985.

 

 

BY THE NUMBERS

Estimated career women firefighters in the United States: 6,200, 2 percent of the total career firefighters, estimated at 296,850.

Eighty-eight women are chiefs (other than top-level chief). And there are 31 chiefs of department.

California has the most women firefighters, with 1,297.

Minneapolis, Minn., is the urban fire department employing the largest percentage of women -- 17 percent.

Career women firefighters with the Shreveport Fire Department: 29, 5 percent of the 528 employed firefighters. The department also employs 23 women as dispatch and communication officers with 9-1-1.

Career women firefighters with the Bossier City Fire Department: 10, of a total force of 222, with 11 additional women working as communication officers.

An additional 35,000 to 40,000 women nationwide serve as volunteer firefighters.

Source: Women in the Fire Service Inc. Status Report 2005.
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He worked with some of the first women in the department and has been able to see attitudes change from male firefighters and their wives.

"Those first females had to prove themselves a little more than they do now," Ford said. "There were also some women at home (wives) that didn't like the idea of women here (in the fire station). That's gotten better."

Besides being women in a man's world, Snead, Sellers and Coker share a deep loyalty, love of their job and a supportive family that made it possible.

Shreveport firefighters work 24 hours on and 24 hours off for 10 days, then have five days off. Bossier City firefighters work 24 hours on and off six days then have four days off.

Coker, who is no longer fighting fires on the line, now works 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but raised two children while working on the line.

"My children loved it when I was off and didn't like it too much when I was gone, but they were very proud," said Coker, whose children are now 21 and 18. "Every fire truck that went by was mine."Snead, a single mom, is raising a 7-year-old daughter, who stays with her father while Snead is on shift.

Sellers, who is married to a firefighter, raised a son, now a freshman at Louisiana Tech University.

"It's a unique situation to have both parents in the department," said Sellers, who works the same shift as her husband as a "swing" captain, but not at the same station. "We worked out the schedule and made it work. My mother kept (our son) when we were both working; she lived next door. Working for the fire department was definitely a family decision."

Sellers would recommend the job to any woman ready to embrace the community that surrounds them.

"It's been the best 16 years of my life."