Women Have Been Firefighters Since 1815 — So Why Are They Still Only 9% of the Job?

Women Have Been Firefighters Since 1815 — So Why Are They Still Only 9% of the Job?

Most people assume women started joining fire departments sometime in the 1970s or '80s, around when other trades started opening up. That's off by more than 150 years. Women were pulling hose carts through New York City before the Civil War. One led an entire department, top to bottom, a decade before American women had the right to vote everywhere in the country. And yet, in 2026, women still make up roughly 9% of U.S. firefighters overall — and only about 5% of career (paid) firefighters. This is the story of how both of those things can be true at once.

The First Female Fire Chief Nobody Talks About

Skip ahead from the earliest volunteer-era women in the fire service, and the next real landmark isn't a firefighter — it's a chief. In 1931, a woman named Nancy Allen started a volunteer fire department in Cedar Hill, Rhode Island, essentially from nothing. She bought a used fire engine with her own money and fixed it up herself, gathered friends and neighbors into a volunteer corps, and assembled over a thousand feet of hose and two motor-driven pumps on her own initiative. "Chief Nancy," as she became known, ran that department and is widely credited as the first female fire chief in the world. She kept working the job into her seventies.

Nancy "Chief Nancy" Allen built and ran a Rhode Island volunteer department starting in 1931, becoming the first female fire chief on record anywhere in the world.

1974: The Year Career Firefighting Actually Opened Up

For most of American fire service history, being a volunteer was the only door open to women — no big-city career department would hire one. That changed in 1974, when Judy Brewer became the first woman in the United States hired as a full-time, single-function career firefighter. She was, for a while, the only one in the country. By 1980, there were 200. Progress from there was real but slow: FDNY didn't allow women on the job at all until 1982, when a class-action lawsuit led by Brenda Berkman forced the department to redesign its physical entrance exam, which had been structured in a way that effectively excluded every female applicant. Berkman and the other women who entered that first FDNY class faced open hostility for years afterward, including sabotaged equipment and being denied access to station showers.

What the Numbers Actually Look Like Today

According to the National Fire Protection Association, women now account for roughly 9% of the roughly 345,000 firefighters working in the United States — about 89,600 people. But that top-line number hides a real split: only around 17,200 of them are career firefighters (about 5% of all career positions), while the other 72,400 serve as volunteers, where representation is closer to 11%. For comparison, women make up about 47% of the entire U.S. labor force, and policing, another historically male field, has climbed to roughly 13% female representation over the same period. The fire service has moved more slowly than almost any other public safety profession.

Leadership Has Moved Faster Than the Numbers Suggest

Even with the overall workforce numbers still low, women have climbed further into leadership than the raw percentages might suggest. Rosemary Roberts Cloud became the first female African-American fire chief in the United States. In Decatur, Georgia, the top three positions in the department — chief, deputy chief, and assistant chief — are all held by women: Toni Washington, Vera Morrison, and Ninetta Violente. Women have also served as U.S. Fire Administrator and as Superintendent of the National Fire Academy, meaning they've run the federal offices that set training standards for the entire American fire service, not just individual departments.

Women now hold command positions at every level of the U.S. fire service, even as their overall share of the profession remains around 9%.

Why the Number Has Stayed So Low

Part of the gap comes down to physical testing standards that, for decades, weren't designed with women in mind at all — Brewer's own hiring process in 1974 required her to take a physical test that hadn't existed before her application, run in gear sized only for men. Part of it is retention: firehouse culture, scheduling, and a persistent lack of properly fitted turnout gear and station facilities have made it harder for women to stay in the job even after getting hired. And part of it is simply awareness — fire service recruiting has historically leaned on word-of-mouth and family tradition, which tends to reproduce whoever already makes up the workforce. Departments that have actively recruited women, rather than just technically allowing them to apply, tend to see meaningfully higher numbers than the national average.

Bottom Line

Women were riding the pumper wagons in New York in the 1810s, running their own departments by the 1930s, and drawing a full-time paycheck as firefighters by 1974. That's a genuinely long history — longer than most firefighters, male or female, realize. What it hasn't produced, more than fifty years after Judy Brewer's first shift, is anything close to gender parity in the job itself. Nine percent overall, five percent in career departments: those are the numbers the fire service is still working against.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was the first female fire chief?

Nancy "Chief Nancy" Allen is widely credited as the first female fire chief in the world, after founding and leading a volunteer department in Cedar Hill, Rhode Island, starting in 1931.

When did women first become career (paid) firefighters?

Judy Brewer became the first full-time, single-function career female firefighter in the United States in 1974. FDNY specifically didn't hire its first female firefighters until 1982.

What percentage of firefighters are women today?

Women make up roughly 9% of all U.S. firefighters, but only about 5% of career (paid) firefighters, compared to around 11% of volunteers, according to National Fire Protection Association data.

Has a woman ever reached the highest ranks of a major fire department?

Yes. In February 2025, Deputy Chief Michele Fitzsimmons became the highest-ranking female fire officer in FDNY history, and women have also served as U.S. Fire Administrator and led entire departments as chief in several U.S. cities.