The Role Of Women In The Fire Service

The stress that comes with being a first responder has been known to lead to depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide. However, few clinicians are informed about these health concerns and how to adequately treat them in this population. Therefore, there is an urgent need for practitioners to understand the latest information regarding treatments that will be useful to this specific population. Mental Health Intervention and Treatment of First Responders and Emergency Workers is an essential reference source that focuses on the latest research for diagnosing and treating mental health issues experienced by emergency personnel and seeks to generate awareness and inform clinicians about the unique circumstances encountered by these professionals. While highlighting topics including anxiety disorders and stress management, this book is ideally designed for clinicians, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, practitioners, medical professionals, EMTs, law enforcement, fire departments, military, academicians, researchers, policymakers, and students seeking current research on psychological therapy methods regarding first responders.

This book puts a face on women in the fire service, as they share their best stories and the challenges, triumphs, joys and sorrows of being a firefighter, on the line in service to their communities.

A dramatic, revelatory account of the female inmate firefighters who battle California wildfires. Shawna was overcome by the claustrophobia, the heat, the smoke, the fire, all just down the canyon and up the ravine. She was feeling the adrenaline, but also the terror of doing something for the first time. She knew how to run with a backpack; they had trained her physically. But that’s not training for flames. That’s not live fire. California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extreme every year — fire season is now year-round. Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California’s blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews. In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine. She has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program and spoken to captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. The result is a rare, illuminating look at how the fire camps actually operate — a story that encompasses California’s underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice, but also draws on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, frustrations, and the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting. Lowe’s reporting is a groundbreaking investigation of the prison system, and an intimate portrayal of the women of California’s Correctional Camps who put their lives on the line, while imprisoned, to save a state in peril.

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has been a firefighter for eighteen years. She decides which of her colleagues rush into a burning building and how they confront the blaze. She makes the call to evacuate when she feels the options have been exhausted, even if it means leaving the injured behind. She has managed emergencies that have shocked us and moved us, and made decisions that seem impossible. Her book takes us to the heart of firefighting, and reveals the skills and qualities that are essential to surviving - and even thriving - in such a fast-paced and emotionally-charged environment. It immerses us in this extraordinary world; from scenes of devastation and crisis, through triumphs of bravery, to the quieter moments when these assumed heroes question themselves, their choices, and decisions made in the most unforgiving circumstances. Ultimately, we are asked to step into their boots. In the face of urgency and uncertainty, would you respond in an analytical manner or trust your instincts? How would you decide who lives and who dies?

In 2015, women made up about 3.7 percent of career U.S. firefighters (Haynes & Stein, 2017). The percentage of women in the fire service had nearly doubled in the 15 years since the USFA/WFS study. The “U.S. Fire Department Profile — 2015” offered more reliable data than in the past and reported that women held 12,850 career firefighting roles and 72,250 volunteer roles nationally, averaging 7.3 percent of the U.S. fire service overall (Haynes & Stein, 2017).