How officials say women are breaking barriers and changing culture in CT fire stations

“This is where the department is going — this train is going one way,” Ortiz said.

“The city intentionally fosters an environment within our fire department that provides opportunities for female firefighters to rise up through the ranks,” New Britain Mayor Erin E. Stewart said. “The fact that women are applying for lieutenant positions for the first time proves this ongoing shift to a modern, inclusive fire department culture continues to be successful.”

Women represent less than 10 percent of firefighters in the U.S., but the numbers have been steady or rising and more women are taking leadership roles. The number of women answering the alarm bell, however, remains relatively low compared with women in other traditionally male jobs, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

In 2019, 8 percent, or about 88,800, of the nation’s 1.15 million firefighters were women. Among career firefighters, 14,900 (4 percent) were women, and 73,900 (about 10 percent) were volunteers, the nonprofit advocacy and educational organization reported.

Those numbers had not changed much from 2018, when the NFPA compared the number of female firefighters with women working in other professions. The data showed women comprised 13 percent of police officers, 21 percent of paramedics and EMTs and 20 percent of the U.S. military.

The good news, according to the NFPA, is that female firefighters are earning command positions and getting recognized in their communities. The organization highlighted the rise of Tonya Hoover to deputy U.S. fire administrator, the nation’s second-highest fire position, and Tiffany Green, who is leading the nation’s largest combination career and volunteer department as fire chief of Prince George’s County in Maryland.

Mental, physical and educational requirements for the job have become more demanding for all firefighter candidates and competition for leadership positions has intensified.

Burns, a seven-year veteran of the New Britain department, ranked first on a promotional exam and holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of New Haven. Chesanek, also with the department for about seven years, holds a mathematics degree and is pursuing a degree in fire administration from Columbia Southern University, city officials said. Chesanek also serves as a technical sergeant in the Connecticut Air National Guard.

“These two women have earned this position through a competitive testing process,” Ortiz said, “and will serve as outstanding role models to young ladies wishing to be firefighters in their new leadership roles.”

Changing culture

The job of a firefighter can be strenuous and scary and not for people “who don’t function well in a crisis,” warns Women in Fire, an organization that supports female firefighters across the U.S.

“But for those who do not see these aspects of the job as deterrents, firefighting is an exciting, ever-changing, highly rewarding occupation,” the Women in Fire website says. “Most firefighters enjoy the warmth of camaraderie among the crew, the challenge of bringing physical skills and mental abilities to play in what for others is an emergency and the opportunity to provide critical, life-saving services in a moment of need.”

The atmosphere in fire stations also has grown more professional, the organization reported.

“Fire stations once boasted a fraternity-house atmosphere, the men’s ‘home away from home,’ ” the organization reported.

“With so much of one’s time spent in the station, and with work time encompassing aspects of domestic life such as cooking, eating, showering and sleeping, it is not surprising that firehouses were viewed as very different from other workplaces,” the organization stated. “Drinking, sexual activity (with girlfriends or prostitutes), reading or viewing of pornography and other traditional male social behaviors that would have been completely unacceptable in other work environments were often commonplace in fire stations.”

As pay improved and educational standards rose, the organization reported, “such traditions have yielded to more enlightened management and professional standards have replaced frat-house cultural norms in the fire service.”

The annual mean wage for Connecticut firefighters, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, was $68,140. For first-line supervisors, the annual mean wage was $94,710 and for fire inspectors and investigators, $83,440.

In May 2021, the median annual pay for firefighters in the U.S. was $50,700. The median figure is the wage at which half the workers earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent of firefighters earned less than $29,030, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $81,640, according to the bureau. Employment of firefighters throughout the nation is projected to grow 8 percent from 2020 to 2030, about as fast as the average for all occupations, the agency reported.

‘I had to prove myself’

Eileen Parlato, who recently retired as a battalion chief for nearly 30 years with the East Haven Fire Department, said she enjoyed every minute of her career. The experience of getting hired, however, was not as positive, Parlato said.

When she was a candidate to become a paid firefighter, Parlato said she heard a fire commissioner had vowed never to allow a woman in the department and planned to delay a meeting until her test had expired.

Parlato said she hired a lawyer, who called the media. The commission, Parlato said,. was “almost shamed” into holding the meeting.

“So right off the bat, I had some things to overcome,” she said.

A 1993 news brief picked up by USA Today announced the hiring of Parlato and noted she had “accused the town of sexual bias.”

After growing up with three brothers, Parlato, 53, said she did not have to make much of an adjustment to work with men, “but being a woman, I had to prove myself twice as much as a male would.”

She made great friends, however, and her fellow firefighters supported her as she continued working through the first eight months of two pregnancies. Parlato was assigned to monitor water pressure at the pumper truck during a fire, for example, instead of actively battling a blaze while she was expecting a baby.

Otherwise, she had to do everything her male counterparts did and took away a sense of deep satisfaction, the town’s only female firefighter for more than 20 years said.

“I loved every minute serving my community,” Parlato said.

Mary Andrew was one of the first two women to join the Middletown Fire Department in 1990. Retired after 28 years of service, Andrew, 56, said one of the hardest adjustments at first was finding uniforms and gear that fit her 5-foot-3 frame.

Male firefighters also had to adjust.

“Nobody knew what to expect,” Andrew said. “In the beginning, the guys would walk on eggshells and be careful about what they said, but after a while, everything relaxed.”

Although more women are entering the firefighting field, Connecticut Fire Academy spokesperson Alan Zygmunt said physical requirements continue to limit the number of female recruits.

All candidates must pass a strenuous, while wearing a 50-pound vest that simulates air packs and other equipment a firefighter must carry. For the stair climb, each candidate also must wear a 12.5-pound weight on each shoulder and complete 60 steps per minute on a stair machine for three minutes.

For the forcible entry event, a candidate wielding a 10-pound sledgehammer must hit a force-measuring device hard enough to activate a buzzer. Candidates also must haul heavy hose and equipment, raise ladders, drag a 165-pound dummy 70 feet and crawl through a 64-foot-long, 3-foot high tunnel maze, maneuvering around obstacles and through 90-degree turns. The entire test must be completed in 10 minutes, 20 seconds.

“That has been somewhat of a difficulty for women to pass,” Zygmunt said.

The overall pass rate for male and female candidates is about 60 percent, he said. Some municipalities are trying to increase the female candidate pool, Zygmunt said. Bridgeport, for example, provides a physical training facility for interested women.

Andrew said when the job required strenuous labor, “I had to develop my own way of doing things. I had to lift more with my legs.”

“Nothing will ever replace the physicality of the job,” Ortiz said.

Women must meet the standard, according to Ortiz, a retired Hartford firefighter with 23 years in the service, but he also noted that up to 70 percent of fire calls in New Britain are medical, which require empathy, compassion and communication skills more than physical strength. Also, women “can relate to certain medical calls that I may not be able to relate to,” Ortiz said.

Men in the New Britain department have accepted their female counterparts and physical changes to stations necessary to accommodate women, Ortiz said. Burns and Chesanek, who will supervise male firefighters, will always be seen as barrier breakers and models for other women who aspire to the fire service, he said.

Over the past several years, the number of female firefighting recruits in Connecticut has risen, Zygmunt said. A class of 63 that graduated from the academy last fall included six women. Also, more girls have participated in the academy’s Introduction to Fire Service program, which is geared toward teenagers. Among the 64 participants over the last two years, more than a dozen were female candidates, Zygmunt said.

Parlato, the retired East Haven battalion chief, is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in fire science/arson investigation at the University of New Haven.

“Representation is important,” she said, to inspire more girls to become firefighters.

“If young girls don’t see female firefighters, they don’t understand that that’s an opportunity for them,” Parlato said. “Seeing females lets them see that anything is possible.”

Jesse.Leavenworth@hearstmediact.com