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Surviving the Fire: A Case Study of Firefighter Identity at the
Swannanoa Fire Department
By:
Brendan J.M. Nancarrow
Abstract:
This research adds to the discussion of fire fighters identity in—and perceptions of—the fire
service by suggesting that there is an ongoing shift in the occupation away from the masculine
discourses that defined the homosocial nature of the profession towards an emphasis on
professionalism and inclusion. This case study examines how policy, administrative action,
firefighter interaction, and beliefs about what it is to be a firefighter have all contributed to this
shift at the Swannanoa Volunteer Fire Station.
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I.
Introduction: The Changing Face of The Fire Service
– p. 3
II.
Firefighting Culture and Identity: A Review of Theoretical Framework and
Current Research Regarding Gender in the Fire Service.
– p. 12
III.
Research Questions
– p. 12
IV.
The Place-The People: Methods in Conducting Research with SVFD
-- p. 12
V.
Becoming A Firefighter
1. Burning Desire: Is a person born to be a Firefighter?
2. Emphasized Traits in New Recruits
– p. 15
– p. 15
– p. 18
VI. Stress in the Fire Service
1. Joking's Role in Station Life and Coping
– p. 20
– p. 22
VI.
Building Community at the Swannanoa Fire Department
– p. 23
VII.
Discussion and Concluding Thoughts
-- p. 24
VIII. Work Cited
– p. 26
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Introduction: The Changing Face of the Fire Service
Firefighting in America, from its beginning, has been primarily dominated by male
firefighters, and this trend has led, in part, to a perception that has been carried into a great deal
of research regarding gender in fire stations: that firefighting is indeed a gendered masculine
profession (Carp 2001). A majority of research regarding gender in the fire station has focused
on how female firefighters negotiate their gendered work identity within the confines of
masculinity and how this position may incite feelings of marginalization through gender-based
differential treatment, such as insufficient instruction during training, which placed female
firefighters in the position of needing to ask for help, causing feelings of vulnerability (Britton
2000; Goldberg 2001; Yoder and Berendsen 2001). Research conducted by Yoder and
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Berendsen, 2001, on the ‘token’ status ascribed to African American and Caucasian women
firefighters—causing them to be placed in the position of “outsider within”—showed that some
female firefighters found this to be a problem only until they had “proved themselves” and
became “one of the guys” (Yoder and Berendsen 2001).
These sentiments carry heavy ramifications as to how gender is presented within the fire
station; they suggest that in order for a female firefighter to become incorporated fully within the
profession, she must accept a male status. Female fire fighters, then, must negotiate their gender
within this context to become fully incorporated within the team. This negotiation creates
differences along gender lines in the fire station that can lead to a lack of group cohesion, and it
can in turn stagger the efficiency of a career focused on fast response times and team effort in
order to save the lives of community members.
It is in this vein of research regarding firefighting as a masculine-defined profession that I
begin my study to examine through which means firefighters at the Swannanoa Volunteer Fire
Department (SVFD) portray gender and create their identity as a firefighter, and I will also
explore how this presented identity is affecting perceptions of the profession. In beginning my
study, my original intent was to examine how interactions between male and female firefighters
affected the prescribed hegemonic gender identity within the profession. At the start of my
research, however, two happenings changed—almost entirely—the course of this research: low
female participation within the station, and a masculine identity being presented in direct
opposition of the traditionally encouraged gender type.
At the time I began my research it was to be my goal to seek out female firefighters who
had gone through the Swannanoa department’s training program in order to map how the
program affects their perception of being a firefighter. However, I was limited by time and
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accessibility. I will return to this point in the conclusion of this paper, as an aspect of further
research to which this study applies. At the time I entered SVFD there was only one female
firefighter, who was working as a volunteer. Because of the lack of accessible participants, I
chose instead to focus my research on how paid male firefighters, through institutional pressures
and day-to-day interactions, create the accepted masculine form to which they adhere within the
station.
It has then become the goal of this study to document, at least in one station, how the fire
service has begun to move away from the aggressive male stock-type that has been the focus of
gender-based fire station research and to examine how changes in policy, technology, and
recruited firefighters are changing the culture of firefighting at SVFD. In order to present this
examination I will be addressing the why and how for someone becoming a fire fighter, and how
this affects the populations that fire stations recruit from. I will then move into a discussion of
perhaps the most important aspect of someone being able to fill the role of firefighter—that is,
how well a person is able to cope with the stresses of the profession. I will then conclude with a
discussion of how SVFD through policy and training programs has worked towards changing the
culture of firefighting.
In order to gain a more comprehensive insight into the perceived gender of an institution,
I argue gender must be viewed on the individual level within the institution as a constantly
negotiated gender dynamic, in which the interactions between firefighters inwardly determine
whether or not a fire station has a perceived dominant gender.
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Firefighting Culture and Identity: A Review of Theoretical Framework and Current
Research Regarding Gender in the Fire Service.
This is primarily an examination of current research performed on gender dynamics
present within the profession of firefighting. In analyzing this research and its relevance to my
research, I will be drawing heavily on R.W. Connell’s notions of hegemonic masculinity as well
as Judith Butler’s and Erving Goffman’s theories on the performance of gender and self.
Firefighting is a profession characterized by high levels of stress, group interdependence,
danger, and community involvement. From its beginning, firefighting in America has been
primarily dominated by male firefighters, and this trend has led, in part, to a perception that has
been carried into a great deal of research regarding gender in fire stations: that firefighting is
indeed a gendered masculine profession (Carp 2001). It is because of these cultural
understandings of firefighting as well as its highly visible nature to the community at large, that
the profession has become a symbol of success or failure for gender integration policies.
By characterizing and perceiving firefighting as a masculine profession both by the
firefighters and the community at large, the traditionally valued characteristics have been male
defined such as, “…physical size, strength…courage, toughness, and
aggressiveness”(Chetkovich 1997:18; Yoder and McDonald 1998). Due to the profession’s focus
on stereotypically masculine traits for acceptance and incorporation, it creates specific workplace
stresses for female firefighters. Before entering into a discussion about the implications of
women operating within a characterized masculine profession, let us look at the role of
hegemonic masculinities in firefighting.
Hegemonic masculinity in its definition is embodied as the “most honored way of being a
man” that in essence propagated the notion of male dominance over females (Connell and
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Messerschmidt 2005:832). However, hegemonic masculinity is subject to historical context, as
well as being socially challenged. Thus, it takes considerable effort to maintain hegemonically
constructed male domination such as through exclusion of women and lesser masculinities
(Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Schippers 2007). Because firefighting has been, through most
of its history, perceived and constructed as a male profession with no real effort to include
females until the late 1970’s, it can be concluded that women have a harder time becoming a
firefighter “…to the extent that to be a firefighter means to be a man.” (Emphasis in original
Chetkovich 1997:37). This quotation points to the reality that through the history of firefighting,
a firefighter’s merits were judged by the hegemonic ideas of stereotypically masculine notions of
an ideal firefighter that has little to no emotional response, is aggressive, and tough. These
incorporated aspects of self have partially been responsible for defining firefighting as a
masculine profession (Acker 1992). These notions of hegemonic masculinity will be further
discussed and applied in my upcoming discussion of firefighting culture and identity.
Perhaps the most visible hierarchical distinction made within the profession of
firefighting is that between the veteran of a station and a new recruit. The relationship could be
characterized as a teacher/student master/apprentice relationship in which the veteran firefighter
is responsible for teaching the skills and appropriate behaviors to the recruit in order to help their
transition in the community of firefighting. In other words, at the onset of a recruit’s probation
period, usually lasting for up to a year after they have completed training, they are still not seen a
firefighters or as members of the community; their transition into overall acceptance in the
station presents itself as a rite of passage.
In the first stage, the recruit has been selected through an initial testing process, which
has qualified them to receive firefighter training. The training period marks itself as the first
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phase in a two phase liminal process, in which recruits will be taught the basic skills and
procedures of firefighting. The second phase of the liminal period and by far the most important
in deciding how one will present themself is the probation period. This period is a time in which
recruits will take the classroom-taught skills and procedure from their training period and apply
them in real world situations; this is also when the veteran/recruit dynamic is most relevant. For
the recruit this marks, if they have been accepted as a good firefighter, the transition period from
outsider to an insider in the firefighting community (Chetkovich 1997).
The probation period for the new recruit often offers a difficult time in which they are
often hazed and roughly joked with as well as being taught by officers in the training program to
be overly helpful in their probation station(s) and to view the probation period as a time in which
they are entering another’s world and need to live by their rules. For the recruit, these ideas
usually manifests themselves as speaking when spoken to, always being on the lookout for a job
to do, listening to the advice of veterans even if you think you know it (Chetkovich 1997). These
strict guidelines for how the recruit must act, as well as how they handle issues of joking and
hazing will play a large part in whether or not they will be accepted into the community.
Due in part to high levels of stress, danger, and exposure to traumatic events, a firefighter
must have control over their emotional state and be able to think quickly on their feet. In this
sense, joking plays an important role. Joking in firefighting functions as a form of emotional
release, a way in which to establish/show group solidarity, and as a way to condition oneself to
be simultaneously calm and alert (Chetkovich 1997). In the veteran/recruit dynamic, joking and
hazing are the ways in which the veteran tests the recruit’s skill and composure. If the recruit
loses their cool over a joke other firefighters will see it as a potential risk for the recruit to have
trouble controlling their emotions on an emergency call. If the recruit should not have complete
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control over themselves during an emergency call, it could mean potential hazards for
themselves and their teammates. If the recruit can make it through the probation period and
prove to the other firefighters that they have the skills, training, and traits of a firefighter, they
are accepted into the firefighting community.
Joking, however cathartic it may be for firefighters, does present some very serious
problems when viewed in relation to gender. In her ethnography Real Heat, Carol Chetkovich, in
examining urban fire stations found that because of the trauma, high stress, and the masculine
structure of the profession, joking often presented itself in rude, vulgar, and stereotypically
masculine way (Chetkovich 1997). Because of the nature of these jokes, female firefighters are
often challenged to show a sense of humor in accepting anti-women jokes or face becoming
hyper visible for “losing her cool” over a joke (Lewis 2004). In not reacting to these sometimes
blatantly sexist jokes, a female firefighter must then negotiate her gendered work identity within
the confines of masculinity.
In addressing the historical context, we return back to the late 70’s, at which time fire
stations and police departments were under heavy criticism to incorporate more females within
their departments as well as representing local ethnic makeup in their district within their
stations. It was at this time that government policies were implemented to increase the number of
non-Caucasian male police officers and firefighters. As mentioned before, the highly public
nature of both of these professions, as well as strong public pressures, started a rapid integration
process that did not so much change the structure of the institution towards a more gender neutral
position as much as add stricter guidelines as to behavior and demographic makeup. For the
police department, this task proved more successful than it did among fire stations, which still
today have low levels of integration and small female populations (Chetkovich 1997). While this
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paper is not an exploration of police departments, there is an interesting divide made between the
two professions relating to my earlier discussion of firefighting culture. For example, firefighting
relies heavily on teamwork in order to do the safest, most efficient job, while police departments
often work on the partner system in which two police officers are reliant on each other, which
does not present the same overall group solidarity which functions within fire stations.
So, in returning to Chetkovich’s examples, taking place fifteen to twenty years after
integration, some very interesting data presents itself in regards to the gendered self. In one
instance, Chetkovich addresses the feelings of some older veterans, who believed that most
females were not qualified to be firefighters as well as expressing regret about losing the all-male
social setting. In the other example, Chetkovich is conducting a follow up interview with a
female firefighter who has just completed her probation period. The female firefighter relates
how hard it is to sit in a room of all male firefighters as they speak in an abhorrent manner about
women. She mentions that she can feel the “withering hatred that gave rise to such remarks”
(Chetkovich 1997:5).
In analyzing the response of these male firefighters towards female firefighters,
Goffman’s theories on the social actor become particularly relevant. Goffman, in his work on
the social actor, suggests that the self is created and presented within a specific sociohistorical
context; the actor is also limited in the performative acts from which they present gender by the
rules of the social setting. Goffman posits that the more rules present within the social setting,
the more likely the actor is to present a self that is untrue to what they present as their overall self
and beliefs (Goffman 2007).
These assertions mean that, in the case of the highly structured and rule-bound institution
of firefighting, due to a rapid push to hire more female firefighters without any significant
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changes to the withstanding masculine-defined structure, male firefighters switch between two
images of the self with consideration to emergency circumstances. This means that in some
cases, male firefighters switch between the hegemonically masculine discourses that were
present before integration polices to an untrue representation of self. Many firefighters
acknowledge the switch between the two selves, by explaining that, “…fire does not
discriminate, and political arguments have no place on the fireground, where companies work as
a team regardless of the members’ feelings about one another” (Chetkovich 1997:21).
In addressing fire service as a masculine gendered profession, it is important to remember
that it is not inherently so, but rather it has been, through a predominantly male make-up and
greater value placed on stereotypically masculine characteristics, gendered as such. (Acker
1990,1992: Lewis 2004) The implication here is that for female firefighters the standard
behaviors from which she will present herself are determined by and judged in accordance to
male behavior. Furthermore, this framing means that in order to be accepted within the
profession she must put up with sexist treatments defined by male standards (Lewis 2004).
This male bias present within the profession for female firefighters has often manifested
so that females who feel higher discrimination often feel more attention is being paid to their
mistakes. Many female firefighters also reported that the higher the level of stress originating
from their being placed in a token status, the higher the occurrence of sexist events. However,
many female firefighters reported that higher exposure to sexist events have increased their
commitment to the profession (Yoder and McDonald 1998). Among female firefighters, perhaps
one of the most common forms of sexist discrimination reported was the ‘silent treatment,’
relating that it has caused feelings of isolation and marginalization. On the other hand, many of
the male firefighters enacting the silent treatment express fears about what they say to a female
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firefighter will be interpreted as sexual harassment (Chetkovich 1997; Yoder and McDonald
1998; Lewis 2004).
So what, then, can be done to address the negative effects of a gendered masculine fire
station on female firefighter’s acceptance and status within the community? This study seeks to
examine how one fire station, the Swannanoa Volunteer Fire Department, is working to correct
this incongruity within the station through an emphasis on professionalism that makes a move
away from the idea of the fire service as a homosocial club.
Research Questions:
1. How do firefighters at the Swannanoa Volunteer Fire Department present and negotiate
their identities as firefighters, operating within a traditionally male defined space?
2. How has the culture of firefighting changed to affect entrance within the profession? Are
changes in policy, technology, and leadership affecting the populations that firefighting
targets to recruit from?
The Place-The People: Methods in Conducting Research with SVFD
To do this justice, to add to why my research started and finished as it did, I must first
take a level of honesty in explaining a major bias I had in entering this study. In conducting the
exploratory research that would frame my research, I became more and more aware of who I was
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in comparison to what research was saying a firefighter was supposed to be; as well as making
assumptions as to how a Warren Wilson student was to enter a group that I thought may hold
some animosity about how many calls they had to respond to on campus and the nature of those
calls. How would they see me? Could I be accepted? These became the main questions of a six
foot tall, slight, non-athletic, nicotine-addicted researcher. The day I started my research, thirty
minutes within inquiring about conducting the study, these questions were answered, and my
bias exposed for what it was: foolish and dangerous to the outcome of the study.
Day 1- Inquiring about research: The Swannanoa Volunteer Fire Department is divided
into two stations, the main station located in the downtown of Swannanoa across from the
concrete landscape that was once the Beacon Manufacturing plant, and the Sub-Station located
on Bee Tree road, less than a mile from Warren Wilson and home of the station’s “Burn
Building.” At this time, I was under the belief that the Sub-Station was the only station under the
umbrella of SVFD. With my head still swimming in my doubts, bias, and the anticipated horrible
outcome I assumed would come from wanting to ask a group of ‘burly manly-men’ about
identity and gender, I swallowed my fears and walked through the front doors. There stood, in
the hallway beyond the front doors, the image, not the idea, of the firefighter I thought would not
let me in. Though a good five inches shorter than myself, within his lean girth he could have fit
twice that of mine, and his arms were more like tree trunks than appendages. He stood there tall
and dignified. As soon as I came through the door, I was asked very sincerely by this man how
he could help. I explained to him that I would like to conduct my senior research with SVFD and
gave him the abstract as to what it was going to cover. We stood in the hallway talking about the
research for a while, and he suggested that I talk to the Deputy Chief, called him on his cellphone
and handed the phone to me. That is how it started. I again gave my abstract over the phone to
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the Deputy Chief, to an unexpectedly enthusiastic affirmation of the research, and we set up our
first meeting. On that first day, in less than an hour, I let go of my bias and my expectations, and
learned that the joy in ethnographic research comes from where the study will take you, not
where you expected it to go.
After a few meeting with the Deputy Chief, who quickly became my “gate keeper,” on
the logistics of the research and what requirements I would need to fill to conduct my research
with SVFD, the study began.
My original participant recruitment methods were to be direct solicitation of potential
informants as well as a recruitment flyer, which would be posted in both main and sub-stations
meeting rooms with my contact information and a brief summation of the study. My gate
keeper, however, came up with the great idea to make a participant recruitment video that we
could post on a webpage that firefighters visit every morning to complete equipment check lists.
In the video, I introduced myself, identified myself as a senior at Warren Wilson College
conducting research for my major in Sociology/Anthropology, and gave a brief summary of the
study. While this method did not garner me any responses, dampening hopes that the flyer would
have worked at all, it did allow everyone at the station to become familiar with me and gave
everyone an idea as to the research I was conducting.
From discussions with my gate keeper regarding accessibility to possible participants and
the time restraints of the project, I decided to limit the population, from which I drew informants,
to paid firefighters operating primarily out of the SVFD main station. I then asked firefighters
within this category if they would be willing to take part in the research based on leadership
position, years within the fire service, and how many stations they had previously worked for.
Based on these factors, I garnered six main informants: Elmer, Randy, Ryan, Winston, Henry,
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and Rusty, who all agreed to take part in a formal one-on-one interview, which lasted on average
between an hour to an hour and a half. For interviews I had conducted with participants before
my research changed course, I conducted a second formal interview that included the new
questions meant to address the changing aspects of the study. I also included methods of
participant observation, which included being allowed to ride out on calls. I also spent a fair
amount of time at the main station, trying to get an idea of station life from informal
conversations and taking part in station activities.
Becoming A Firefighter
In this section I will be examining the personal definitions of what it means to be a
firefighter at SVFD. What, for my participants, brought them into the fire station and what
aspects do they find most rewarding. In examining personal beliefs about firefighting, I will
address feelings held by most of my participants, that a person is born to be a firefighter and may
or may not ever fill that role. There is, however, some innate aspect of the self that allows them
to perform the job. In closing this section, I will discuss what my informants both in leadership
positions (Battalion Chief, Deputy Chief, Chief) and outside of them (firefighter) express as
being the most important traits for new firefighters entering the service. I argue in this section
that SVFD is moving away from an emphasis on brute strength that in part characterized a
traditionally masculine fire service towards emphasis on physical ability, and
professionalism.(Britton 2000; Chetkovich 1997)
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Burning Desire: Is a person born to be a Firefighter?
“I think you have to be born a Firefighter, and I say that because not many people are going to go
running into a burning building, you don’t, you can’t teach—I mean we train people to do that,
but it comes from inside.”-Ryan
The quote at the start of this section came when I asked if a person is born to be a
firefighter, a question I asked all of my participants. In responding to this question, though I got
different answers, the sentiment was the same across all participants. Perhaps one of the best
ways I heard this described was that anyone can train to be a firefighter, but you know you are a
firefighter when you can run into your first burning building and survive the fire. This ability to
run into a dangerous situation is heavily reliant on trust for your team members’ skill set and
ability as a firefighter. The question then becomes, if a person is born to be a firefighter, what
then influences the decision to become one? Many participants stated that they did not know the
reason but could point to certain aspects of their childhood( such as watching their local fire
department performing drills), family life (having a history of firefighting that allowed them
from an early age to perceive of the effects of the profession), and personality (compassion and
the ability to put oneself in the way of harm for another) that made firefighting an appealing
option, but could not explain why they could enter the burning building while others could not.
Henry, in addressing this, posed his answer in the form of another question:
What would make you sacrifice yourself for another human being? I don’t know.
I can’t tell you, some burning desire, something in yourself that needs be fulfilled
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by…it has to be fulfilled by something, someway, what would make you feel like
you need to protect yourself, your family, and the perfect stranger?
This excerpt addresses two very important aspects of the fire service as well as
characterizing the decision to become a firefighter: exposure to personal risk and the idea of
sacrifice for someone you have not met. While I will discuss the role of trauma in the fire service
later in this paper, the implications of this quote stand as, if firefighting is such a dangerous
profession, open to the few who can handle incident related stress of the profession, what then
allows a firefighter to have the capacity to carry out the job?
While a person may be born a firefighter, how do they continue to perform the job in the
face of stresses and trauma, and what aspects of the fire service keep them in the position of
firefighter? For the majority of my participants, it was the progressive training of SVFD and the
emphasis on the group/family structure that SVFD has fostered.
All participants of this study addressed the group function as one of the most important
aspects in being able to carry out the job successfully and having a feeling of security on scene.
Much of the formation of the group comes in part from training together, spending long periods
together, and the supportive nature of handling the stresses of being a firefighter.
At this point, we can conclude that in a person being a successful firefighter, they have
the ability to put their personal safety aside to help another, due to the trust they have in their
training as well as their fellow firefighters. Having come to this point during my interviews, I
often asked what, then, is so appealing about the fire service, that you would encounter these
risks? The four key themes that arose from my participants out of this question where:
Adventure, Excitement, Teamwork, and Compassion. For the firefighters at SVFD these were
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the aspects that characterized firefighting and furthermore their love for the profession; they are
what have kept them in the job. While all my participants expressed an innate ability to enter a
dangerous situation signifying their ability to enter the profession, many firefighters see this as
fulfilling a part of themselves that otherwise would be left untapped. In this sentiment, many
firefighters then move past viewing the fire service as a job to seeing it as a life choice that
completes their image of self.
Elmer for example states, “…it is your character, it is part of you, so now I could get a
tattoo and feel like I deserve it…I’m labeled and I could retire tomorrow and in twenty years still
look at that tattoo and know I earned it…that that is a part of who I am.” For Elmer, the
profession does not only become a part of self, it becomes a means by which to define the self.
He uses the tattoo as a way of explaining how the profession has influenced what he wishes
people to see and understand about him as a person. Many of my participants expressed the same
feelings, addressing it as a need to be a firefighter because of who they are, and many joked that
it could not be for the pay, because the job does not pay well, particularly in the face of
associated risks.
If we have then, at this point, characterized what it means to be a firefighter for those
operating at SVFD, then an idea of the person SVFD would want to enter the station, and
maintain this emphasis on community and training, starts to become clearer.
Emphasized Traits in New Recruits
“A good education, Physically fit and when I say physically fit I mean they exercise. They’re not
body builders, but they can walk five miles up a mountain…Not being trained, being educated-
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not how something works, why it works, and that’s where I see the fire service going now with
its services. You come out with a degree and you have a person with a high school degree or a
two year degree in fire protection, that’s the person we’re going to hire.”- Ryan
Swannanoa Volunteer Fire Department since the early 90’s has been known in Western North
Carolina as a premier training station, in this the leadership has oriented the stations training program
around the idea of the student that wants more with a heightened emphasis on education. That is to say
that SVFD provides unrestricted access to all training materials, as well as training recruits well past what
national standards prescribe. For the management, this emphasis on training to become an efficient
firefighter , translates to the firefighter with more training and thus more knowledge about the fire service
is going to have a greater ability to be helpful to and supportive of the team on scene. With greater
training comes the ability to notice small factors in an emergency situation, such as weather conditions
and smoke patterns, that will in turn increase the firefighters ability to make decisions quickly as to what
they need to do or whether to go in or stay out. In order to teach and train in this way, SVFD has created
an idea of the kind of student who can take on this responsibility.
For those in leadership positions there is a clear idea of what they are looking for in new recruits:
“…intelligent. Dumb will get you killed. I can’t make that any blunter.”-Elmer
“The passion for the job.”-Winston
These two quotes as well as the one at the beginning of this section point to a shift, at least within SVFD,
away from the traditional means of acceptance within the fire service which emphasized being a member
of that fire station’s community over education and related qualifications. For those in leadership
positions at SVFD, they have realized that in placing more importance on education, it allows for
firefighters to feel more comfort in their fellow firefighters’ skills, and thus increases trust, ultimately
strengthening the group.
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For the firefighters operating within a system that places greater value on a person’s education
over their relationship to the community or station, a new emphasis of what a firefighter should be is
formed and presented best by Henry when he explained:
“I don’t give a rat’s ass—nationality, race, gender. I don’t give a damn. If you can do the job you
can do the job. If you can’t, you can’t… I need to know [though]. I don’t care who you are, if you can get
us out of here then you can get us out of here, and that’s what I need to know.”
We see in this quote that the emphasized firefighter is no longer the over-muscular Caucasian male, but
rather the firefighter is the person that both the community and their fellow firefighters can rely on to
keep them safe.
Stress in the Fire Service
"...what’s going to happen is when you go into the burning building you are literally
going to have somebody’s life in your hand, and to high-tail it out of there because you got
scared [doesn't finish his thought]...we try to do that in a controlled situation before we put them
in a real live fire."- Ryan
This above quote does a good job to address both the significance of training, as well as
the individual’s ability to handle a stressful situation at the benefit or risk of their teammates. For
many of my participants, the ability to handle these stressful situations comes from mastery of
the fear through education. This process includes learning to recognize signs, assess them, then
make an educated decision; trust in team members skill and education; and the individual ability
to enter a dangerous situation. The trust a firefighter has for another's ability to pull them out of a
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dangerous situation is by far one of the most important factors in maintaining an efficient
emergency response team. Elmer describes the importance of trust when he explained, "if
firefighters in the group sense that another firefighter doesn't give a crap, then...whew...there will
be separation that comes. They don't care and that's my life on the line, and they don't care." This
quote speaks to the break down in group dynamics and subsequently group functionality that
occurs when a firefighter feels that they cannot trust their teammate to keep them safe. This is in
part why SVFD places such a big emphasis on training together with your shift, so you can see
you team members’ ability outside of an emergency situation and become comfortable with their
ability in relation to yours.
Swannonoa Volunteer Fire Department has lost only one firefighter to an accident that
occurred while he was heading to a scene. It was Elmer's first month at SVFD, and he was with
the firefighter at the time: "that was a hard start." This firefighter had also been the board
member who had convinced Elmer to join SVFD. After his passing Elmer related that he "...felt a
responsibility to have success for him." After the death of this firefighter, SVFD held the first
CISD in western North Carolina.
CISD ( Critical Incident Stress Debriefing) was introduced in the early 90's as a sevenstep group therapy program, meant to create an open area for firefighters to discuss their
emotions and feelings relating to a traumatic incident. In this space rank, holds no bearing in the
discussion and everyone is equally able to express their feelings without the fear of judgment.
This institutionally supported catharsis brings about an interesting point when examining the
traditional idea of the emotionless firefighter. Emotion can be dangerous to a firefighter; it can
slow their ability to react quickly in an emergency situation. This contextual danger, however,
does not mean that in order to be a firefighter they must be devoid of emotion. In fact, within my
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research, many participants became emotional when explaining why they felt it was important
that they do their job. Emotion is very important to firefighters at SVFD. As mentioned before,
many explicitly noted an important factor in becoming a firefighter was passion for the job.
Before CISD, firefighters were left to cope with traumatic incidents on the individual or small
group level. Within the traditional masculine ideals of firefighting, having an overt emotional
reaction to a stressful event could mean your exclusion. As such, a visible display of emotion
would present itself as part of a lesser masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Schippers
2007).
One way that the traditional masculine structure of firefighting allowed for an emotional
release that has carried into new ideas of masculinity at SVFD is joking.
Joking's Role in Station Life and Coping
Another important aspect of fire fighter identity is the ability to cope with stressful
situations. Due in part to high levels of stress, danger, and exposure to traumatic events that are a
large part of the job, a firefighter must have control over their emotional state as well as be able
to think quickly on their feet. In this sense, joking plays an important role. Joking in firefighting
functions as a form of emotional release, a way in which to establish/show group solidarity, and
as a way to condition oneself to be simultaneously calm and alert (Chetkovich 1997). Joking
when used as a coping mechanism often addresses some aspect of the call that has produced
anxieties, and many of my participants related that if the outside to community were to hear
these jokes, they would be considered morbid. But, as explained by Elmer, "We deal with
destruction, with death, with the death of a coworker, we...we have to get past those points and
Nancarrow 23
keep being productive." In this way, joking helps many firefighters deal with traumatic
experiences by acknowledging them in the joke structure while simultaneously using the joke to
distance themselves from the incident and its accompanying trauma.
Building Community at the Swannanoa Fire Department
“…If anyone came in contrary to this, it would not go over well. There has been enough
of a culture change here that that person would kind of be culturally pounced on. Now,
that’s not how it would have been in the 70’s. It would have been the peer
pressure…following on like a group of teenagers might do.” -Elmer
The quote at the beginning of this section came when I asked this participant what
happens when a new firefighter comes in with the perception that SVFD is exclusively a male
defined space. I found that SVFD as an institution has tried to make a move away for the idea of
firefighting as a male defined social space towards firefighting as a profession. Thus, there has
become a focus on education and experience. Ryan—an informant in a leadership position—
when discussing the pride one feels in becoming a firefighter, made light of the distinction
between SVFD and many other stations when he explained, "I think vol. or paid, you kinda stick
your chest out and say: I'm in the fire department. But I also think that’s being ruined by the
folks in some of the departments, who don't take it as a profession. It’s just a good ole' boy
club..."
The question then arises how does SVFD present itself as different from the traditional
idea of firefighting as a male social club?
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In order to make SVFD a more inclusive place and move away from the traditionally
prized attributes of the fire service in the past, the Swannanoa station separates itself by
emphasizing a high level of training and professionalism, individual firefighter's needs, and by
recruiting out-of-county potential firefighters. In this way, Swannanoa’s recruit methods notably
deviate from surrounding stations because it does not define itself exclusively by the community
it services, as opposed to traditional fire stations, whose primary recruits came from within the
county it services, and which often marginalize those who come from out of county. This top
quote from Elmer, I believe, does a good job showing the opposition to traditional fire station
models. This quote also brings up another important aspect of my research, best summed up by
another quote from Henry, “…management has a lot to do with it, I think more mature
management has a lot to do with it…they see that it takes all kinds and that knowledge is power,
and just because one way is not your way doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way: it’s just a different
way.” This quote shows a movement away from the traditional ideas of leadership in the Fire
Station that focused power on a small group of individuals who lead in autocratic and direct
way, essentially "my way or the highway." The leadership at SVFD realizes that, though an
individual may not have title, they do have a unique skill set that should be regarded as useful to
the job.
Discussion and Concluding Thoughts
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In conclusion I argue that both the leadership and the individual firefighters of SVFD
have worked to create an alternative masculinity in direct opposition to the traits of the
traditionally masculine defined structure of firefighting, which was characterized solely by its
male participation, its values of brute strength, and direct and autocratic leadership styles. Thus
in defining itself by emphasis on physical ability, democratic leadership styles,
education/professionalism, and meeting the individual needs, SVFD has comprised this
alternative masculinity of traits that, in comparison to the traditionally masculine defined nature
of firefighting, would be considered feminine in nature. However, due to the success of SVFD
training programs, I would assert that while these traits could be considered feminine, they
should be understood as viable means to push the overall institution of firefighting towards a
makeup of professional firefighters over specific demographics.
My research is limited in that I draw the majority of my research from one fire station
with within Buncombe county. In focusing on the experiences of a handful of firefighters within
a specific demographic setting, it does limit my analysis applicability to other fire stations
outside of a small portion of Western North Carolina, such as those in larger urban setting. This
is particularly true due to my research focus on the contextual factors of the individual within the
negotiation and portrayal of gender and identity within the context of firefighting.
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