Toronto Fire Services has just set a new record: for the first time in its history, three of its top graduating students are female.
Whytney Hooker, a former city worker, finished first in the class, with Katherine Shirriff finishing second, and Annemieke Struyk rounding out the top three.
The achievements are a clear indicator of a flourishing trend: women aren’t just interested in pursuing a career in firefighting – a field still dominated by men – but they’re graduating at the top of their class too and moving into superior roles in the process.
These bold women will now join the Toronto Fire Department’s bravest to put their lives on the line in the name of protecting our city.
Scott Eyers, who leads the fire service’s training department, said in 2013 that women only made up five per cent of the force. In turn, the city began to develop new ways to get women to join the service.
“The city started… kind of showcasing this is a job you can do, and we’ve started to get more women and minorities applying and now we’re starting to see the fruits of what they were planting,” he said.
Once the Toronto Fire Services began changing how it promotes careers in firefighting, it saw a drastic shift in the number of women applying. Over the last three years, the rate of female enrolment has jumped between 15 and 20 per cent.
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