The representation of women in the wildland fire business is currently somewhere around 10%, but some women have set out to increase that number. One of their methods that seems to be working is the Women in Fire Bootcamp that took place in Albuquerque and Phoenix over two weekends in September as part of a Forest Service outreach program in Region Three (Arizona and New Mexico).
Founder Bequi Livingston of the Forest Service’s Regional Office in Albuquerque describes the origins in an email: “about ten years ago, I started talking the idea of a “Wildland Firefighter Boot Camp” here in the Region and there was not much interest at the time. As we continued struggling with recruitment and retention of women in wildland firefighting, especially here in Region 3, the idea came about to host a “Women In Wildland Fire Boot Camp” to target our female audience. Luckily, our FAM (Fire and Aviation Management) staff liked the idea and were willing to help fund our first Boot Camp back in March 2011. Our first Boot Camp in March 2011 was great and we had 20 candidates here in New Mexico and I believe, 14 in Arizona. We then hosted the Boot Camp again in March 2012 with not quite as many applicants and did not have a 2013 Boot Camp due to lack of funding. Last fall, I developed and submitted a proposal to the Forest Service FAM Diversity Program to receive funding and support to keep the efforts going. This was with much help from Helen Graham (Assistant Fire Management Officer-Tonto National Forest) in AZ and Linda Wadleigh (Mogollon Rim District Ranger-Coconino National Forest). Luckily we received special project funding through our Washington Office FAM to help fund and support the Boot Camp for the next three years.”
Ms. Livingston continued: “Part of this history includes my personal story and challenges as one of the first women in wildland fire and also my experience in Region 5 with the horrid Consent Decree. One of my intentions is to provide a safe and trusting environment for these candidates with great instructors (men and women) to ensure that we set them up for success rather than failure.”
“Although the program’s intent is to recruit and train women as its target audience, we are very inclusive in that we accept and consider ALL (her emphasis) applicants equally, including males. In fact, we have our first male in our current New Mexico session and he’s been great. We did not get enough applicants to fill all our slots for the New Mexico Boot Camp and had several female applicants pull out, which left us with additional open slots. Josh turned in a good application, is very interested in the program and is in one of those slots. Although our primary intention is to recruit and train women as the target audience, we consider all applicants equally”, Ms. Livingston added.
Jeb Koons, a Fire Management Officer from the Coconino National Forest and one of the Arizona Bootcamp’s instructors summed it up this way: “the program is to recruit women, but once they are here, they are all firefighters”.
So it was all classroom the first weekend, with more classroom work the second weekend with a field day hosted at the Tonto National Forest’s Goldfield Admin Site on the Mesa Ranger District. There the lectures were put into practice with hands on experience digging line, water handling, mop up, tool sharpening and fire shelter practice along with familiarization with firing devices, pumps, engines and getting used to working together as a crew.
Continue reading “A grass roots effort begins to increase the number of women in fire”
