Gal Fire Fighters Do What’s Needed In Brigade Too Small for Specialists
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Andy Mathers, clad in a yellow turnout coat, rubber boots and helmet, jumped down from the East Burke, Vt., Volunteer Fire Brigade’s big red pumper as relieved firemen from the neighboring East Haven Volunteer Fire Department sprinted up.
“Our tanker is dry,” yelled the East Haven chief. “Get yours into operation—fast!”
Thirty minutes later, the fire was out. A greenhouse and shed were destroyed, but the attached house was saved. The newly formed East Burke Volunteer Fire Brigade had received its baptism of fire, thanks to a mutual aid call from the East Haven department. East Haven men had knocked the fire down, and East Burke fire fighters, with some quick pump work, had allowed them to extinguish it.
As personnel from the two towns disconnected pumps and began to curl hose, an East Haven fire fighter, noticing the “ANDY” on the back of Mathers’ turnout coat, said, “Thanks, Andy. You guys got here just Hey, you’re a girl.”
Without missing a step in rolling hose, Andrea Mathers admitted she was.
Women volunteers
“The vast majority of fire departments in Vermont are volunteer,” noted Norman Bird of Kents Corners. As training officer of the East Montpelier Fire Department and an instructor for the Vermont State Firefighters Association, Bird works closely with most of the fire departments in Vermont. “There are 240-odd fire departments in Vermont, approximately 12 career departments and 225 to 230 volunteer. There are no women fire fighters in the career departments, but I would guess that one-fourth of all volunteer departments in Vermont have women fire fighters.”
Mathers is but one of a growing number of female fire fighters in Vermont, one of six on the East Burke Volunteer Fire Brigade. She is not totally new to fire protection. Since age 17, from mid-April until November, Andy has surveyed her domain from the fire tower atop Burke Mountain.
“I act as a fire dispatcher for the Vermont Department of Forests and Parks,” explained Mathers. “If it is dry, I may spend eight hours a day in the tower and report all the smokes I see. Last year, there were approximately 300 fires that had to be reported, but this year has been much wetter. From the Burke Mountain tower, I cover all the Northeast Kingdom.
“I’ve been up in the tower five years now, and I don’t have any intention of coming off—I really like the job.”
“We girls have been right in there from the beginning,” said Cheryl Ware, a young mother of three. “There have been practice exercises when the majority of participants were women, and times when women were the first ones at a fire and had to get things going. We use women because in the daytime, most of the men are out of town. We originally figured the women could at least get the equipment to a fire, and then let the men take over as they got there.
“It didn’t work out quite that way,” she continued. “Our department is so small that everyone has to be able to do everything. We don’t have ‘pump operators’ or ‘nozzlemen.” There are no specialists. When we get to a fire, we do what has to be done whether we are male or female.”
“Besides the fact that the brigade fights fires really well,” added Barbara Siekierski, an interviewer with the Vermont Job Service, “it helps to bring together people in the community. The people in the brigade are very dynamic. Everybody seems to get along well. In any organization or group thing, you have a number of different personalities. The people in the department seem to innately know what has to be balanced as far as personalities are concerned. There is a lot of give-and-take. I think most people feel free to give their opinion.”
Andy Mathers and Cheryl Ware were simultaneously struck with the same thought: “Around here,” they added with a chuckle, “everybody gives their opinion.”
Dedication needed
“We don’t care what we are called,” noted Siekierski, “It doesn’t bother us if someone has a problem calling us ‘firemen.’ Perhaps in some endeavors women may get pushed into the background, but in this fire department, we are really up front. We don’t feel there is any good reason why a woman can’t be a fire fighter as long as the woman is dedicated. Not every man can be a fire fighter, nor can every woman. Some don’t have the interest, the commitment, nor a proper view of the fire service. It’s not a glory thing. It is something you have to be consistently for.”
Nancy Gorham works a full shift as a machine operator at Vermont American Corporation in Lyndonville, then goes home to East Burke to bundle firewood and make pallets at Leon Hopkins’ wood products operation. To fill her spare time, she has been building her own home with help from her father and brother. Nancy has been a regular on the East Burke brigade from its beginning.
— photos by Peter Wagner.
As one observer noted: “Nancy is a gal who can do anything; drive truck, handle an ax, or run the pumps. You would have to describe her as ‘active’.”
Marie Mathers, a laundry worker at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, and Holly Mathers, a high school student, are relatively new to the fire brigade, but Marie has already earned her advanced first aid certification and both are learning to handle the fire apparatus and various other equipment.
Must operate equipment
In addition to attending fire fighting courses conducted by the Vermont State Firefighters Association, all East Burke fire fighters have to learn how to operate the fire apparatus, run portable pumps, lay hose, draft from streams, use breathing apparatus, and attack various types of fires.
“Previously, I had driven a four-wheel drive and a pickup truck,” noted Siekierski, “but never anything as huge as the fire trucks. They teach a girl to handle a 2 1/2-ton truck the same as they would a guy.”
“No one person was responsible for getting the department started,” reported Bob Ware, the current president of the brigade’s board of directors. “Leon Hopkins and I had a lot to do with it. Leon is still the man we call on when we need help with the equipment. He knows as much about the equipment as anyone around here. Pete Burrington, my wife’s father, had a lot to do with getting things organized. We ran short of people for a lot of things, and we soon learned we had to have women in the department. Here in East Burke, it was a necessity to use women as fire fighters. Here they are half of our available manpower. We just didn’t have enough men around, particularly during the daytime.”
Surplus pumper obtained
“After the tragic Lyons fire in April of 1973 when we lost a mother and two children,” continued Bob Ware, “we started looking around to learn where we could obtain equipment. We organized the town as a civil defense unit. Eventually the civil defense people in Montpelier called and told us about a surplus Air Force pumper down in Massachusetts and said, if you want it, go get it.’
“The next morning we sent two guys down to Massachusetts even though at that moment we had absolutely no place to house the truck. Hoppers Corporation offered to let us use an open shed at the mill, so we pulled a crew together that morning and boarded in the open front. We were pounding the last few nails when the two fellows pulled in from Massachusetts with our first piece of equipment—a big pumper that had started life as an Air Force crash truck.”
State and federal matching dollars, plus an annual grant of $750 from the Town of Burke, provided seed money for basic equipment and utility bills, but East Burke Volunteer Fire Brigade members have proven to be extremely innovative fund raisers. “People dread to see us coming,” grinned one volunteer, “because they know we are going to sell them a raffle ticket.”
Raffles alone won’t pay the bills, so East Burke fire fighters average one fund-raising activity a month. They put on suppers, field days, an annual canoe race that draws entrants from throughout the northeastern United States and Canada, and accept donations for services rendered, such as filling swimming pools and burning brush.
“We probably have more fund-raising activities than any other organization around,” admitted Bob Ware. “To make them successful, we have had to have everyone’s cooperation. The women have been so important in the fund-raising activities that they just naturally fell over into the actual fire fighting. Rather than have an auxiliary, we found the women would be more effective as fire fighters.”
“We have tried to stay away from the auxiliary type of setup,” agreed Andy Mathers. “We have seen it in other towns, and the auxiliary sometimes seemed to be in competition with the fire fighters. When we have a supper to raise money, the men cook and do dishes right along with the women—everybody does everything. We are not separate at all.”
In its first two years of operation, from December 1976 through December 1978, the East Burke Volunteer Fire Brigade fought 44 fires, but clearly the most memorable occurred the night of December 4,1976 only two days after the brigade had been formed.
Women prove their worth
“By far the most serious fire we have worked on,” explained Andy Mathers, “was the one I happened to report because I was a neighbor—the fire at Burke Mountain Lodge. It was 18 degrees below zero that night. It was snowing and it was icy, but there was no wind, thank God. Fire companies responded from Lyndonville, East Haven, Lyndon State College and East Burke. The river was frozen and we had to cut through 4 to 6 inches of ice to get a draft with our portable pumps. The fire started at approximately 2:10 a.m. and we were there until about 6 p.m. that day.”
“The women really proved themselves at the Burke Mountain Lodge fire,” agreed Bob Ware. “They all took very active parts. Andy turned in the alarm, drove the tanker, and assisted in getting some people out of the three-story building. Andy and Cheryl ran the pumper, and they manned hoses right along with the other fire fighters. Conditions were terrible. It was so cold the water was freezing nearly as soon as it left the nozzles.
“Nozzlemen manning 2 1/2-inch hoses were being driven right across the street because they couldn’t get traction with their boots on the solid ice. Cheryl saw what was happening and started spreading sand. She was hauling and spreading sand like crazy all night long just to keep the nozzlemen in position—and they remembered it.
“The women distinguished themselves at the Burke Mountain Lodge fire and proved they definitely had a place in the fire department,” Bob Ware continued. “They showed they could do the job—that they were not just token fire fighters. They didn’t just jump in the truck, start it, and then turn it over to the men. They manned hose and participated in the final cleanup. They hauled portable pumps through 3 feet of snow to get to the brook to draft water. There is not a man around here who can say the women did any less than they did.”
Acceptance achieved
“If there had been any question of acceptance by the men,” added one female fire fighter, “it was answered at the Burke Mountain Lodge fire. It didn’t matter a bit there if we were called firemen, fire fighters or fire persons. In the heat, stress, and passion of the actual fire fighting situation we were more likely to be called %$# @¢&—just like all the other fire fighters. There, the men were concerned only with getting some help with the rough job at hand. They couldn’t have cared less if we were male or female.
“The other fire departments have been really good about supporting us,” added Andy Mathers. “There are some things we can’t do. Cheryl and I can’t grab a portable pump and throw it on the back of a truck. Our chief, Brian Greer, knows that and asks us to do what we can do.”
“We can do 90 percent of the required functions,” agreed Cheryl Ware, “but we know when to back off. They say: ‘ You do this,’ and either you go do it or you let them know right then—‘I can’t do it.’
“The men have confidence in us. We are considered fire fighters, and I don’t think they pamper us at all,” Cheryl declared. “I have never seen any condescension—NONE. They are a little surprised sometimes. A few might have thought we were just along for the ride, but they found that we roll hose in freezing weather right long with the rest of them.”
