Interview with Sarinya Srisakul, President of United Women Firefighters Interview by Katie Edmonds Photos: Sarinya & her dog (courtesy of Sarinya Srisakul), photo in gear: Nicholas Truong, photo in gray tee: Sue Schaffner as part of a Visual AIDS project Women firefighters and officers only make up 0.5% of the FDNY, which is shockingly a historic high. While the number has grown from past years, this is the lowest percentage of women firefighters out of all the major cities in the United States. Sarinya Srisakul, President of the United Women Firefighters (which represents
the 57 women firefighters and women fireofficers who work for the FDNY) says, “We have a real opportunity to make great strides in changing the landscape for women firefighters in the FDNY. This job will change your life.” I’m guessing there’s a lot more to being a firefighter than extinguishing fires and extracting people from burning buildings, but I don’t know what that is. Can you walk me through a typical week in your life? Sure…I actually balance my time between the firehouse and running the United Women Firefighters. A typical light week in the firehouse is working two separate 24 hour shifts. We have a schedule of doing chores, tool maintenance and checks, drills and going out to do building inspections. We also collectively make
