All-woman ambulance crew a 1st at Arkansas fire department

Female firefighters challenging status quo in Rogers

Rogers Fire Department firefighter/emergency medical techs Kari Crump (left) and Lacie Hewlett check equipment Oct. 14 at Rogers Fire Department Station 1 in downtown Rogers.
Rogers Fire Department firefighter/emergency medical techs Kari Crump (left) and Lacie Hewlett check equipment Oct. 14 at Rogers Fire Department Station 1 in downtown Rogers.

ROGERS — Two firefighters made local history earlier this month when they served as the first all-female crew on Medic 1, the Rogers downtown ambulance.

Kari Crump and Lacie Hewlett responded to 10 calls on their Oct. 9 shift.

The pair are changing the idea of what local firefighters look like and challenging the unspoken notion that women aren’t strong enough to be rescuers.

There were more than 1.1 million career and volunteer firefighters in the U.S. in 2014, according to the National Fire Protection Association’s “U.S. Fire Department Profile” released in January. Of those, 82,550, or 7 percent, were female firefighters.

That percentage was less among career firefighters, where women made up about 3.5 percent, or 12,100 of the 346,150 career firefighters. The percentage of women was higher among volunteer firefighters, where they made up closer to 9 percent, or 70,450 of the 788,250 volunteer firefighters in 2014.

“We are the lowest uniform service in the country,” said Cheryl Horvath, fire chief at Mountain Vista Fire Department in Tucson, Ariz. The 7 percent of United States Marines who are women is double the 3.5 percent of career firefighters who are women, she said.

Horvath also is a past president of the International Association of Fire and Emergency Services.

The Rogers Fire Department is unusual in Northwest Arkansas as most departments don’t have any women. Bentonville, and Springdale a̶n̶d̶ ̶B̶e̶l̶l̶a̶ ̶V̶i̶s̶t̶a̶ departments have no female crew members, Bella Vista has one* and Fayetteville has o̶n̶e̶ two.

Fire Chief Tom Jenkins said this isn’t the first time the Rogers department hired female firefighters. One has been on staff since 1997, starting with Kim Pike, but never more than one at a time until now.

“Even having one made us a fairly progressive department,” Jenkins said. “We hired a second [female firefighter] this year, so this was the first time it was possible to have an all-female crew. It’s historical, neat and peculiar.”

“Historically, there’s a stigma that firefighters have to be male, even the word fireman carries that. And it’s taken a long time to combat it,” Jenkins said.

An ambulance crew consists of two people, while a fire truck crew consists of three. The crew makeups change depending on who is working, Jenkins said. Crump and Hewlett typically work different shifts, but Crump was working an extra one Oct. 9.

On the surface, the Rogers Fire Department might seem more likely to have a female crew. The city combines the Fire Department and ambulance service, and women are more common as EMTs and paramedics. But Crump and Hewlett are trained firefighters who underwent the same rigorous physical tests as the men they work alongside.

“They do everything the male [firefighters] do,” Jenkins said. “They’re phenomenal; they pass the same requirements as our other employees and are every bit as capable as the men.”

Hewlett was hired by the Rogers Fire Department in 2004 after going through the Northwest Arkansas Community College Fire Science Administration and Technology program. While a swimming instructor in Portland, Hewlett taught a female fire chief. Watching her student made her realize it was possible to be a firefighter and be able to help people in their time of need while remaining poised and professional.

“I grew up with the idea that a woman couldn’t do this; I didn’t think it was possible,” Hewlett said. “I had no idea this was a thing.”

Hewlett was naturally athletic. She grew up playing basketball and softball and running track and cross country in high school. Her first jobs were teaching swimming and spin classes. Still, she wasn’t sure if she was up to the physical challenge. The director of the college’s program conceded that female students were rare for the program and that Hewlett would have to get stronger. She hired a physical trainer.

“At first I thought, ‘Is this really for me?’” Hewlett said. She wasn’t sure. “When I started, I wasn’t completely confident, but once I started crossfit, I got confident and knew I could do anything. I had more energy, more strength and was better.”

Working out is a condition of being a firefighter since their bodies are the tools that carry much heavy equipment, Hewlett said. The Rogers department has a policy that crew members work out for at least 30 minutes daily.

Undergoing the standard Candidate Physical Ability Test, which is a requirement even to apply for firefighting jobs, was a test of body and mind for Crump, too. In it, candidates have to complete a stair climb in 3 minutes and 20 seconds while wearing the average 55 to 60 pounds of firefighting gear and 25 pounds of additional weight. They’re also asked to do a hose drag, tool carry, dummy drag, move the ladder and conduct a search-and-rescue exercise where candidates crawl through a series of boxes.

“Really, it’s a very mental mind game,” Crump said. “We all worked together, but I still second-guessed myself. I thought, ‘Should I be here?’”

Crump was hired at Rogers in April and came to the department with 2½ years of part-time experience from a 55-person team in Minnesota that includes nine women. In her first week, she had to complete a stair climb at the Embassy Suites in Rogers, a building that has 10 stories. She’s since been surprised at the strength and capability of her body.

Crump has hopes the stigma around female firefighters will change the more people see people such as Hewlett and herself.

“We should teach girls that they can do what they want,” Crump said. “It’s humbling to be a part of, because I feel like I’m just doing my job. It’s cool to think that we can change that outdated thinking.”

Horvath said there are several reasons why the number of women who serve on fire departments is so low. It’s considered a nontraditional occupation for women, so young girls and women don’t realize it’s a profession that’s available to them. Efforts to recruit women are strong in some parts of the country but nonexistent in most, Horvath said, adding that more than half of the fire departments in the country don’t have any women.

*CORRECTION: Bella Vista has one female firefighter, and Fayetteville has two female firefighters. The number of female firefighters in both departments was incorrect in this story.

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