WHEN Gloria Austin joined the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) in 1958 as one of the first female firefighters, she answered calls in the duty room and could only dream about riding in fire trucks or fighting fires.

However, decades later, women are pushing boundaries and blazing trails, with Julian Davis-Buckle — the assistant commissioner in charge of Area II and the highest-ranked female in the brigade — chief among them.

When Austin joined the brigade she was stationed at York Park Fire Station. The 98-year-old told the Jamaica Observer that, for the women of her time, rising to the rank of assistant commissioner or any high rank was only a pipe dream as their sole role was to conduct administrative tasks in the duty room.

“In the duty room [we] had to receive the calls and dispatch the unit. Other stations would be calling in, and you had to inform them of what you heard on the radio and what you have dispatched — how many men. The super[intendent] would be calling in at the same time. If it was a large fire, the super[intendent] would call the first unit, and he would be dispatched to the scene of the fire. He would be calling in to let you know the progress and if you should dispatch another unit,” Austin recounted.

However, despite their interest, she said the women were never allowed to ride in the trucks or go out in the field, and her male colleagues at the time gave them the title “women on the concrete”.

“The men didn’t accept us too much, because they said we were getting the same salary as them. Sometimes when the men would be called for duty in the duty room, if one of us [women] was out, they said, why should they have to come down to the duty room and we are getting the same salary like them,” she recalled.

“I would just ignore them. But many of them were helpful; sometimes they would be upstairs in their quarters and when they heard the bells going off, they would come down on the pole and ask if they could help. They all would be standing around and have a pen and paper to jot down something that we may not, within that minute, be able to remember,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Austin recalled that the calls were received in Morse code and they had to be taught how to interpret them. She said, unlike today, people could not just call in to the fire station, they had to ring fire boxes located across the island to get a unit — a system that many exploited.

‘“On a Saturday night or Friday night when there would be careless people on the streets, and they saw the box, they just pull it down and then a call would come in. We didn’t know if it was false or not, but we had to treat it as a legitimate call and send the unit out,” she said.

In her five years working with the Jamaica Fire Brigade, Austin said she had the privilege of sending out units to fight big blazes at locations such as Coronation Market in Kingston and Times Store on King Street in downtown Kingston. However, she would have loved to be among those fighting the blaze.

Though her dreams were dashed, she said she is pleased to see that her hopes of a JFB where women play a more hands-on role have come to fruition.

“I am very pleased with the advancement and the amount of young people who are joining the brigade now. I am pleased to see the women joining, and they seem to be very much interested in their job. I am very pleased to see that I have lived to see this. It feels great,” the 98-year-old told the Sunday Observer.

Austin added that she was particularly elated when she met Davis-Buckle at the JFB ball and awards ceremony last month, and learned that women were now allowed to occupy such high ranks.

Recalling their interaction, Davis-Buckle said it was an honour to meet one of the women who paved the way for other women in the brigade.

“She was saying that she was not as lucky as I am to mix and mingle with the men and she don’t know how to hold a fire hose. We laughed about it and she said, ‘I wonder if I’m really a firewoman because I don’t know how to hold a hose,’ because they weren’t allowed [to] at that time. She said to me, ‘You are the real firefighter because you do the firefighting, but we did the housekeeping to make sure the firefighters do well out there,’” Davis-Buckle recalled.

“It is a warming feeling for me when I realise that I am a part of a rich history. She said to me that she’s happy that I’m not just a firefighter, but I am now in top management because she said even though she wished it, she never thought it would be possible [to see women in higher ranks], and she lived to see it possible,” Davis-Buckle said.

She continued: “When I told her my ranks she said, ‘What! How did you get there?’ and I tell her how I’m just two ranks away from being commissioner and she said, ‘Wow! That’s so nice’!”

A history-maker herself, the assistant commissioner said she joined the JFB in 1995 when women were still assigned to administrative duties, but determined to break the glass ceiling, she worked hard to become one of the first women in Manchester to ride on a fire truck.

“I remember getting my first gear, and I never wanted fire to burn so much because I wanted to wear it. Getting my first fire call, I can remember it was awesome. I went on the truck, and it was a bushfire. It was the truck you had to hang from. I think that was another issue, too, because they would be protective of us, to have us hanging on the back of the trucks. But when we started to get the trucks, when we sat inside, they were more comfortable with us riding more and going out there. You just had to prove yourself,” said Davis-Buckle.

When she learned that a female had never been to high ranks within the brigade, she said she was even more motivated to hone her skills and prove that women are capable of taking up space in male-dominated fields.

“I said to myself, ‘I really want to wear one of those blue uniforms, and I really want to be that female for the JFB to form history’. So far, I am on track. I am doing my best. I am doing what I need to do so that when that day comes for me to put my hat in the ring, I can measure up to the men because, I am telling you, there are some tough men,” said Davis-Buckle.

She stressed that she has never wanted to be promoted because of her gender, and always worked to bring herself to new heights, taking every course available to improve her rank. With a degree in disaster management and law, she now sets her sights on the position of commissioner of the JFB.

She urged other women in the brigade to be steadfast in the profession and improve their skills to build a legacy of female excellence.

“Understand the role and function that you play in the organisation. Study the landscape of the organisation, understand your weakness — not only as a female but as a firefighter — and go build on it. Understand your weakness, don’t shy away from it,” said the assistant commissioner.

The JFB currently has a complement of approximately 2,000 workers, 85 per cent of whom are men. However, the development of a stronger female presence within the brigade is a move being championed by Commissioner Stewart Beckford, who said structural limitations are being addressed.

“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 Observer at a JFB awards ceremony last month.

“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 said.