For the first time in the Corvallis Fire Department’s 150 years of operation, an all-female crew staffed a fire station.
Longtime firefighters Katie Davenport, Sherri Doll and Madison Brink made history while manning Fire Station #4 in south Corvallis on Nov. 9.
All three firefighters have extensive experience with the fire department. Davenport has worked for Corvallis Fire for nine years and as a firefighter for 15 years, starting in the field when she was 19.
Brink and Doll started as volunteer firefighters at the same time and have been paid members of the department for eight years.
Brink started volunteering as a pre-med student at Oregon State University and Doll began volunteering after working various jobs, ultimately turning firefighting into a second career.
According to the women, the shift was in the works for a while.
“We’ve been waiting for the stars to line up for a couple years,” Davenport said.
While the day might have been considered historic, it was like any other day of work for the firefighters.
“We were just doing our job at the time,” Doll said.
Even so, the three firefighters remarked that the day was exciting. The day was also Brink’s birthday, which they also noted as being special.
“We didn’t have to deal with any of the boys,” Davenport said while laughing. “We had salad for dinner.”
Doll and Brink expressed similar sentiments.
“We used whatever bathroom we wanted,” Doll said. “(The men’s bathroom) was way bigger.”
The firefighters noted that while they work with great guys, they sometimes feel pressure to show they are capable as women.
“It was a good way to train and learn together. We work with some really great guys, but there’s always the stress to do it perfectly because I’m a woman,” Davenport said.
“We didn’t feel like we had to prove ourselves at all.”
According to Davenport, while there had previously been female firefighters at Corvallis Fire, including one in a high-ranking lieutenant position, she was the only female firefighter on staff when she started working at the department.
For Davenport, female representation in the firefighting field is important to encourage more interested girls to pursue the profession.
“Growing up, I never thought (about being a firefighter), never even crossed my mind. I had never seen a female firefighter,” Davenport said. “It’s showing girls that it’s an option.”
Doll had similar sentiments as Davenport.
“I think people think you have to be some big, buff guy to do this job. But you can do this job. You have to work hard to do this job, but anybody can do this job,” Doll said.
According to Tony Woods, the battalion chief for the C-shift, the department currently has nine full-line female paid staff and two women are in the department’s two-year apprentice program.
All the firefighters said that Corvallis Fire has been supportive of them and has fostered a welcoming and inclusive culture, something they said is not necessarily the case at every fire department.
The women emphasized that they do the same training and work as any other firefighter. They also expressed that female firefighters have ways of doing things differently and other strengths that help the community they serve.
“The great thing about having females in the department is it creates a little bit of diversity. There’s calls that we go on that we all need to bring different things to the table,” Brink said.
“We’ve all been on calls where we’ve been called down because we’re the only female on shift that day, and that’s what’s needed on that call,” Brink said. “People from all different backgrounds, it’s great to have them be in the fire service, because we can all pull from previous experiences and different backgrounds and different personalities to provide the best service to the community.”
Davenport and Doll noted that they were also in the first all-female medic crew at the department and that this was another milestone.
The firefighters said the next biggest historic first would be a permanent all-female fire crew shift, which could happen in the near future.
They encouraged women interested in firefighting to learn more, whether through a ride-along or by looking into apprenticing or volunteering at a fire station.
The department’s website notes that resident volunteer firefighters are provided housing and states that it can be an ideal position for interested Oregon State University students.
“If you’re interested in doing it, then go for it, because there’s a lot of ways to be good at this,” Brink said.
“And we all bring something different to this profession. And we might not be the strongest, but we might be able to do something that (men) aren’t able to.”