Decades before she was appointed to run the U.S. Fire Administration, Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell was a rank-and-file firefighter looking to make a difference as the sixth female member of the Memphis (Tennessee) Fire Department.
Originally on track to go to medical school, Moore-Merrell fell in love with emergency medicine while earning her paramedic license: “I got the bug and the adrenaline rush just from the context of the training.”
When the opportunity arose for her to join the fire service, she brought her enthusiasm for the job to the MFD: “I was excited about the engagement with people who needed help and being there for them in the moment.”
However, before she even graduated fire recruit school, Moore-Merrell was faced with the challenge of how to manage parenthood and shift work – certainly a familiar concern even for modern parents, but a particularly difficult one to navigate in the early 1980s.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do, frankly,” Moore-Merrell said. A friend who was a nurse had stepped in a few times, but she was not a long-term solution. “What is she going to do for 24 hours?”
A fire officer on a different shift had heard about Moore-Merrell’s difficulty in finding adequate childcare and offered her a lifeline: “He was very kind and said, ‘You know what? My wife and I can do this for you.’”
With the help of her colleague, Moore-Merrell was able to coordinate a care strategy that allowed her to be fully present on shift, knowing her child was taken care of.
“Sometimes my son would come with me to work, and [the officer] was working the shift where we’re going to be changing up, and he’d take him home with him,” she said. “Sometimes I’d drop him off at his house on my way in and then pick him up.”
It was a career-defining moment for Moore-Merrell; it was fire service camaraderie in action: “Obviously I paid them for the services, but had they not been willing?” she asked. “Who does that for 24 hours for someone else’s child? This is the real spirt of the fire service. This is what it means to be in a brotherhood, a sisterhood – to care for each other; when someone does something like that and you can’t possibly repay it.”
The kindness was everything: “That’s what got me through that challenge and allowed me to stay on the job for the time that I did.”
The selfless gesture from a fellow firefighter was a stepping stone that allowed her to secure her footing at the beginning of a storied career that eventually led to her holding the country’s top fire service position.
A hostile reception requires a head-down mentality
Despite the kindness of her colleague, Moore-Merrell faced additional challenges in her early days in the fire service, from the lack of bathroom/shower facilities to ill-fitting gear and hostility from male firefighters who were not ready to share their chosen career field with a woman.
“My first encounters in the station where I was assigned after training was a lukewarm reception,” she said. “Some of the leaders there, the officers, were very welcoming and ready to mentor, ready to make sure I was successful. Then there were those who didn’t want you there at all.”
It was the push-and-pull of interactions with her fellow firefighters that made the career challenging, not the job itself, Moore-Merrell said – something still seen today, even as more women are entering the fire service than ever before.
“Women can do this job, no question,” she said. “It’s the social interaction with the male-dominated environment that becomes an issue.”
Despite feeling the hostility from some of her colleagues, Moore-Merrell put her head down and got to work, determined to make a difference by doing the job to the best of her abilities and continuing to learn.
“Your main purpose needs to be the job, the mission at hand,” she said. “Should you change the environment along the way? Great. You will do so through your performance, through your own leadership and your own behavior and character, and how you present yourself.”
Complaining about inequality won’t earn you any favors, either, Moore-Merrell said: “You can’t wear being a woman on your sleeve and bring it up at every turn and expect to get change from a group that may have not been open to you being there. When you put it in their face every day, now you’ve changed even those who might’ve been an advocate.”
It was a delicate balance, she recalls, particularly as she got further into her career and came face-to-face with issues related to gender that challenged her ability to do the job safely.
Where progress has been made … and where it’s still needed
When considering the issues women in the fire service continue to face today, there have been significant strides, Moore-Merrell said, particularly on the operational side.
Operational barrier: Ill-fitting gear
When the fire administrator first joined the MFD, it was on her to alter the uniforms that were created specifically for the male build.
“We were issued male gear because that was all there was back then,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many times I picked up uniforms and then I’d have to have them tailored to fit me. That can get a little pricey.”
While not perfect, this is one area of the profession that has responded enthusiastically to the needs of female firefighters, Moore-Merrell said.
“Why is that? It’s because women on the job are saying, ‘Enough. We belong here. We need this,’” she said. “The Women in Fire organization, they have taken this head on and are making progress with our manufacturers. They’re holding them accountable; we don’t need to be hampered by ill-fitting gear that causes us to get hurt or not be able to perform at the highest level and somebody else gets hurt.”
Operational barrier: Shift work and childcare
Another challenge is the lingering shift work conundrum when it comes to childcare – an issue that still traditionally falls on women to solve. What it comes down to, Moore-Merrell said, is creating more options to provide flexibility for departments, not just for women but for all members.
“One of the things we’re starting to realize, particularly from our international engagements and what we’re learning from fire services around the world, is that you don’t have to necessarily have the same shift for everybody in your department,” she said. “Maybe those who want to work 24, work 24. Maybe you have a cadre of those who want to work 8-hour shifts, and they start the exchange. Well, three 8s is a 24, right? Or two 12s? What’s some combination of shifts that we can make work that we don’t have 24 across the board? Is this an option?”
That flexibility is critical to ensure that women – as they have been told for generations – can do it all; they don’t have to choose between their desired career and their family.
“We want to make sure they have the opportunity to be both – they can be a firefighter, and they can be a mom who is present,” Moore-Merrell said. “That’s a big barrier.”
Social barrier: Station leadership
Addressing operational issues only happens when station leadership leans into solving the needs of all their members – not just the ones traditionally seen as “correct” for the role.
“You have a microcosm at each fire station within a department that has vastly different personalities based on the leadership in the station,” Moore-Merell said. “We need leadership that leads everybody the same, whether they’re like you or not.”
Without inclusive guidance from the top, progress cannot be made, she added.
“I would encourage men to learn how to lead women, because they are different,” Moore-Merrell said. “Learn how to lead people who are not like you. I had fantastic male mentors – men who stepped up and wanted to see me succeed. They wanted to teach me, they wanted to open doors for me.”
That kind of buy-in from those in charge makes a difference, she said. In its absence, the culture collapses.
“We need leadership at the captain and lieutenant level that leads everybody to be the best firefighters and paramedics they can be,” she said. “Until we get that, we’ll continue to have offensive behaviors at the fire station because of the lack of character of some people on the job. Until we overcome that, that’s always going to turn [women] away, particularly [how they’re] treated at the station level if it’s tolerated, allowed or not dealt with immediately.”
Social barrier: How women see themselves
Along with station leadership mentality comes changing the cultural view of the fire service and who belongs in it.
“One of the biggest barriers we still have is young girls and teenagers who don’t see themselves in this role,” she said. “That’s changing, however. There are now many, many girls’ camps across the nation that are recruiting, bringing in these girls, teaching and putting them in gear and showing they can do this. It’s still a barrier today, but is it being reduced? Absolutely, because we have a focus. I think just the knowledge that you can do this as a woman is important.”
Moore-Merrell also has a message for current female firefighters who are leading in the space: “Step up” and help grow other women in the career field.
“The worst thing we can do is think, ‘Oh, I’m the only woman in the station. I’m here, yay me. I don’t want any other women here.’ That’s the absolute worst thing that can happen,” she said. “As I said, what someone did for me early on is something I can never repay. Think about how you can do that – open doors or help someone in a way they can never repay, because that’s the good stuff.”
You can do it
When it comes to what advice she would give women who are considering a career in the fire service, Moore-Merrell does not mince words: “Do it.”
From the hundreds of women who have served to the thousands serving now, there is a career path that has been blazed for you to follow, she said.
“I would say to women, seek it out. Go find more information. Be bold,” she said. “Talk to some women in fire. Go visit a fire station and ask, ‘I’m thinking about this, could I get a tour of the training center? Could I see or watch a recruit class?’ Go to job fairs where you know the department’s going to be there.”
At every level, women are a critical part of the fire service profession – that’ s not an accident, Moore-Merrell said.
“Don’t continue to have the mindset that this is a male-dominated field,” she said. “Yes, it is, but what does that really mean? They [dominate] in numbers, but not in mentality – not at this job, anymore, when I’m sitting at the top fire position in the nation as a woman, that speaks volumes. My deputy was also a woman firefighter. The head of FEMA is a female former firefighter.”
It’s a change that has been decades in the making, Moore-Merrell said: “Numbers is a game, but dominance for leadership is a different kind of game; I think we redefine what male dominance means.”
