For the first time in its history, the Burnaby Fire Department has promoted a female firefighter to its top ranks.
Fire Chief Chris Bowcock sent out a memo to all fire stations Monday (Aug. 21) announcing Capt. Heather Wilson, a 24-year local firefighter, has been promoted to the position of staff officer IT.
"Please join me in congratulating Heather on her appointment," Bowcock wrote.
Her responsibilities will include oversight of fire information technology systems, management of business analytics data, communications centre, radio systems and professional performance.
Wilson, a co-founder of Camp Ignite, an all-girls firefighting camp led by female firefighters, is not the first woman to join the department's executive team, but she is the first female firefighter to reach that level.
The only other woman to break into the ranks of senior management so far is Sharon Caughlin, a longtime administrative assistant at the fire department who was promoted to senior manager of fire business services in 2021.
That same year, the department's most qualified female firefighter at the time retired early after being passed over for promotion the year before.
Cathy Van-Martin, a 25-year veteran of the department with a master's degree in crisis, emergency and disaster management, had applied for two senior positions that opened up when Fire Chief Chris Bowcock was promoted to the department's top position in 2020.
Van-Martin was passed over for both.
Despite being one of the first fire departments in B.C. to hire female firefighters, the Burnaby Fire Department hasn’t always been a leader when it comes to gender equity.
For a 14-year period between 2002 and 2016, it didn't hire a single female firefighter.
During part of that time, the city, the fire department, the local firefighters' union and the fire chief were fighting off an explosive sexual harassment and discrimination complaint at the BC Human Rights Tribunal from one of Burnaby's first female firefighters, Boni Prokopetz.
Prokopetz alleged she had faced sexual harassment and discrimination from her very first day on the job and throughout the decade that followed — and that the firefighters' union (headed at the time by now-Mayor Mike Hurley) had done nothing to help, according to tribunal documents.
None of those allegations were ever tested at a hearing, and Prokopetz's complaint was eventually resolved through a confidential settlement agreement in 2005.
But the long gap in hiring has led to a shortage of female firefighters in the department’s leadership pool.
"You’ll have a period of time where there will be very few female fire officers at the fire company level in that there won't be any graduating to those positions for some time," Bowcock told the NOW when asked about the issue in 2021.
At the time, Bowcock said the department had done a better job of hiring women for about three years but still had "a long way to go."
Neither the city nor the fire department has yet announced Wilson's promotion publicly.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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