Taos County’s firefighting women blaze a trail
In a profession traditionally occupied by men, women are blazing a trail in fire departments throughout Taos County.
Last Sunday (Sept. 15), thick smoke billowed from the windows of a trailer at the mini-academy, an annual training course held in Red River at the Enchanted Circle Regional Fire Protection Association Training Grounds. A group of firefighter trainees advanced toward the crackling flames and crouched low to the ground, ready to enter the burning structure.
As they disappeared into darkness, Bonnie Driskell, the miniacademy’s accountability officer, gripped her walkie-talkie in anticipation. The trainees re-emerged dragging a dummy to safety, their gear smeared with soot.
“Water on!” someone shouted, and a blast of high-pressure water surged from a firehose, hitting the trailer’s entrance with a powerful hiss.
As the flames sputtered out, the trainees gathered outside the trailer. One by one, they pulled off their helmets, some revealing tousled buns and ponytails damp from the heat.
Kim Belaire, a trainee with the Carson Fire District, Adrianna Chacon, a trainee with the Peñasco Fire Department, and Kayla Dunkel, a trainee with the Carson Volunteer Fire Department, are but a few of the woman who underwent the mini-academy training to become certified firefighters.
A 2020 report by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) found just 9 percent of firefighters in the U.S. are women, the majority of them volunteers.
However, at the Taos County Fire Department, women make up around half of the volunteer
crew. Others, like the Costilla Fire Department, boast similar gender ratios.
“I think we have a 50–50 split of women and men in our [12-person] department,” Costilla Fire Chief Leslie Maes, who served as a combat lifesaver in Iraq in 2004, said. “A lot of them are husband and wife, or boyfriend and girlfriend. It’s a small community, so we both need to pitch in, otherwise it really doesn’t work.”
According to the NFPA, the number of female firefighters in the U.S. has increased by just 2 percent since 2016, when only 7 percent were women.
Reasons for the slow growth include the intensely physical nature of the work, sexual harassment, long hours, general disinterest and a lack of role models for young girls.
For Questa Fire Chief Raynelle Sanchez-Cordova, firefighting is a family tradition. Her mother was a firefighter and a paramedic, and one of Sanchez-Cordova’s daughters was a junior firefighter.
“We have to get out there and make it known,” Sanchez-Cordova said. “It’s a male-oriented environment, so you have to have thick skin, get in there and push yourself. That’s what I’ve done for most of my career, but I hope to get more females involved in the fire department because it’s needed.”
Volunteer fire departments across the country are struggling to recruit enough firefighters of any gender. And unlike in the military, women in firefighting undergo the same entrance exams and academy training as men.
“Climbing up ladders is a bit of a challenge for me, and carrying out victims, because I’m not that strong,” Sanchez-Cordova said.
“It depends on your strengths and weaknesses. What you have as a weakness is probably what you should practice doing more at your stations.”
Rachel Lucero, a former wildland firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, is a medical unit leader and EMT sponsored by the Bureau of Land Management’s Taos Field Office. Though she loves her job, she’s familiar with the challenges women sometimes face in the field.
“I’ve been on a [wild]fire where a woman, a firefighter, got raped in the middle of the night and the human resources person blamed them because she didn’t cry out when it was happening,” Lucero said. “We had to fire [the HR person] and get another person in there.”
Lucero, who’s often on call with a two-hour response time, added, “If it weren’t for the people around me who love and support me, I couldn’t do this job. It’s taxing on my marriage and I’m actually separated right now. It’s taxing on the children, who are on the edge of their seats because they know if I get a call, I could be gone in a moment’s notice.”
Sanchez-Cordova said she has also faced obstacles because of common misperceptions about gender.
“When I first started, a couple people told me I couldn’t do it because I had children,” she said. “I’ve never let it define me.”
Despite the challenges, Lucero believes women enter firefighting for similar reasons as men — the sense of achievement, teamwork and desire to help others.
“I love it,” said Desika Payne with Taos County Fire Department. “You make a lot of friends working with the department and your crew— the camaraderie, you know? You go on calls together, eat together and sleep in the same house together.”
Contrary to popular belief, only about 5 percent of fire department calls involve fires. According to NFPA statistics, 65 percent are calls are medical. Nonetheless, Taos County Fire Lieutenant Gabriella Smith said all of her department’s paid EMS staff are acquiring firefighting certification.
“It takes not just physical strength but emotional strength,” Smith asserted. “When somebody calls 911, they’re asking us for help. If they have a pet, family album or a blanket that grandma made two years ago, we’re going in and saving those.”
As another mini-academy drew to a close, Smith said she believes women will play an increasingly vital role in firefighting.
“We’ve seen a lot of things that are abnormal for the rest of the community,” Smith said. “I think that’s grounded us to being humble and appreciative of having that sympathy and support. We’re not actually mean or unfriendly, we’re just a little dirty from the ash is all!”