BURNING AMBITIONS

East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service (ESFR) is gearing up for a recruitment campaign in which it is actively encouraging applicants from diverse backgrounds, including LGBTQ+ communities. Jaq Bayles spoke to two women whose stories inspire

The Fire Brigade Union has had a national LGBT Support Group since 1994, and its chair and one of the founding members is Yannick Dubois, ESFR station manager – business safety (based in Hove), who has seen many changes and improvements in inclusivity over the years.

Indeed, when she joined the service it wasn’t especially welcoming to women, LGB or people of colour – of the 30 people on her training course in Buckinghamshire she was the only woman.

“There were just a few lesbian and gay people who met in pubs to see if there were other people like us in the service,” she recalls. “At the time there were a lot of issues, LGB people were going through hell. It was the ‘90s and equality and diversity were not the best.”

Yannick Dubois

It took around six years for Yannick to come out: “I needed to meet with other women, other gays and lesbians, and eventually we formed a group that became part of the structure of the service.”

But while there are plenty of ‘out’ women across the service as a whole, the pattern is not repeated when it comes to men. Yannick knows of only one gay man who is out in the whole of the Sussex service, but struggles to pinpoint why that may be, given that the environment has become a lot more inclusive and there are work courses aimed at educating around diversity.

Colleague Jules King, assistant director – Safer Communities, and chair of Women in the Fire Service UK, says she would be “astounded if there were not more gay men in our workforce”, and adds: “There’s something that’s preventing some of my male colleagues feeling it’s not safe for them to feel their whole selves at work. Is it like football or rugby, where there are not many openly gay men? It’s a fantastically supportive environment where I can be wholly myself, I’ve been open about my sexuality and I’m comfortable with it.

My dad told me to stay in bed as long as possible because you get shorter during the day, and to wear a couple of pairs of socks. I just made it

“It’s OK to be different and celebrate diversity. I bring different elements to the work – being more diverse I have different experiences. Just by being myself I have different life experiences, my family is different, I have adopted children, my daughter has special education needs. My colleagues will have different experiences from me. We can look from different perspectives and there’s always more than one way to serve.”

Like Yannick, Jules has noted many changes in the service since she joined in 1994, although there were a full three women on her training course. She came to the job after stumbling across an ad for East Sussex Fire Brigade, which went on to say words to the effect that it “particularly welcomed applications from women and black and minority ethnics”.

“I remember thinking I didn’t know women could be firefighters. I showed the ad to a good friend who said: ‘Jules, you can do that’. I told my mum and she said: ‘you can’t do that dangerous job’.”

Jules King

Back then there were other obstacles to joining the fire service too: “You had to be between 5ft 6in and 6ft 3in.” Only just at the lower end of the scale, Jules wasn’t sure she’d make it. On the day it came to being measured: “My dad told me to stay in bed as long as possible because you get shorter during the day, and to wear a couple of pairs of socks. I just made it.” Applicants also had to be under 30, but now anyone over 18 can apply.

Both women obviously love their work, and are at pains to point out that it’s not all about running into burning buildings – in fact, it’s far less about that anymore, thanks to all the education and inspection work that goes on.

As an inspecting officer, Yannick looks after fire safety measures in hotels, care homes, pubs, “every single commercial building”. Similarly, Jules points out that she is “responsible for all the prevention, protection and response activities. Looking after the business safety, also prevention, which is community safety”, adding: “We want to stop the emergencies from happening in the first place. We want to help people learn and educate them.”

Yannick adds: “It’s an amazing career, you work for the community, you’re part of a team, it’s very diverse in terms of what you are doing, you never know what that’ll be from one day to the next – fire, a road traffic accident, flooding, helping an elderly person. It gives you a great sense of pride and community spirit.

“I love my career and how we have progressed in terms of diversity. We are at Pride every year now in the parade. In the beginning we used to go around all the Prides in the country to just show the community that we are supportive, engaged and very much welcome LGBTQ+ people. We are changing all the time for the better.”

And she is particularly proud of the LGBT Support Group having won first place in the Fire and Rescue Service Equality and Diversity Awards, presented by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), in 2008.

I love my career and how we have progressed in terms of diversity. We are at Pride every year now in the parade.

While anyone working as a firefighter needs to be prepared to face some tough scenes and scary moments, these are offset by more heart-warming moments.

Jules says: “Most significantly when the bells go and there’s an emergency response and you go and make someone’s most hideous of days that little bit better, with the ability to bring some peace.

“Some of the uplifting events are more about the little things. You turn up to an incident and someone’s lost something but you’ve been able to go back into the house and salvage some of their treasured possessions.”

On the downside, she recalls “being the first officer attending incident where a double decker animal transporter had tipped on its side just outside Ringmer. There were 33 pregnant cattle and only two survived. The human tragedy you may go to is devastating but there’s something about animals, I think because they are so helpless.”

Yannick’s first call was to a stable fire. “That was quite difficult and always stuck in my mind. It was the first time I was faced with death and they were horses. That’s the sort of thing you have to be prepared for.

The human tragedy you may go to is devastating but there’s something about animals, I think because they are so helpless.

“I have had times when I have been scared – where suddenly you feel flames all around you.” But on a lighter note, she has rescued horses stuck in mud, dogs from a house fire, and extracted people safely from mangled cars in traffic accidents.

All these things make up the varied fabric of fire services life, and underpinning it all is the sense of family. “We have a very good wellbeing structure to look after each other. Within the watch you spend so much time together night and day, and we all know each other very well. It’s a bit of family structure, we all know each other’s other half, that’s why it’s so important to be out at work because we do spend a lot of time together.”

To find out more and apply to become a full-time firefighter in the upcoming recruitment drive, visit: www.esfrs.org.

East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service statement on inclusivity

East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is here to keep our communities safer – whether responding to emergencies, working to prevent them happening in the first place or providing support, our firefighters, officers, control room operators, business and community safety teams, support staff and volunteers all play their part. In order to improve the way we deliver services to our communities, we need to ensure we have a service that is reflective of the community it serves.

We value diversity and recognise that different people bring different experiences, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength. We want our workforce to be more reflective of society at all levels in the organisation. Having a range of perspectives, cultures and experiences brings a greater understanding to our organisation, which contributes to decision making.

We are therefore actively encouraging applicants from diverse backgrounds to consider a career as a firefighter, find out more about our applications process and apply to become a wholetime firefighter in our upcoming recruitment drive.