NEGRIL, Hanover — Noting that 85 per cent of Jamaica Fire Brigade’s (JFB) 2,000 members are men, fire chief Stewart Beckford said efforts are being made to accommodate more women in the profession.

He said there are ongoing efforts to address structural limitations that are now a barrier to welcoming the increasing number of women who are interested in a career with the JFB.

“While we would have wanted more to join at this time, sometimes the infrastructure does not lend itself to that because the stations, the way they were configured, do not allow for gender-specific areas such as bathrooms, sleeping areas, and so on,” Beckford told the Jamaica Observer last weekend.

“What we have been doing over the past decade or so is to reconfigure some of the stations, and when we are building new stations we make sure that we build them gender-specific so that the females can have their own facility, their own accommodation, and feel just as welcome as the males,” he added.

There has been some progress made as the number of women firefighters is now two per cent higher than last year. As Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenzie noted in the last sectoral debate in the House of Representatives, this puts Jamaica way ahead of the United States and Canada which have five per cent and 4.5 per cent of women firefighters in their respective fire brigade ranks.

Speaking with the Observer last week Saturday, the fire chief pointed out that women are integral members of his team.

“There are times when they are out fighting fires and persons may not know that it is a female until, probably, she removes her helmet or something like that… They are just as active as the males, and one of the things that I like about them is that they will always remind us that they are here and we need to recognise that. We do recognise that and appreciate them for the job that they do,” assured Beckford.

The commissioner was speaking on the sidelines of a ball and awards ceremony that ended a series of activities staged for Fire and Life Safety Week 2024.

The event was held at Royalton Negril Hotel in Hanover.

During the event, eight retired firefighters were honoured. Among them was the last living member of the first four women to join the brigade, Gloria Austin. She joined JFB in 1958 and served for five years. She was stationed at York Park Fire Station in Kingston.