West Pierce Celebrates International Women’s Day
West Pierce Fire & Rescue is proud to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th. Did you know these statistics about WPFR and the women who serve the Lakewood, University Place and Steilacoom communities?
- Of the 186 total full-time employees, 29 are female and 10 of them serve in leadership roles.
- Of the 140 firefighters who run 9-1-1 calls daily, 10 are female, and the first was hired in 1996.
- In 2017, WPFR promoted its first female to Assistant Chief and she has since been promoted to the rank of Deputy Chief.
- 50% of WPFR’s Executive Staff is female.
- WPFR’s first all-female crew worked their first 24-hour shift together in 2020.
In terms of recruiting, WPFR has seen a consistent number of females apply for the position of firefighter. Over the summer, the firefighter application period had to close early because the threshold of 1,000 applications was met two weeks prior to the original closing date. Of those applications, approximately 15 percent were female. This number has gradually increased over the past few testing processes and WPFR is proud to see more diversity in its numbers.
West Pierce Fire & Rescue is incredibly proud of its employees and the work they do to serve the community each and every day.