Blazing Trails : County Department’s 1st Black Woman Firefighter Fulfills Dream, Forms Support Group for Others

Tonya Burns remembers her childhood in Nebraska and seeing her father, a captain with the Omaha Fire Department, walk through the front door after a long shift at the station.

“I used to be so proud when he came home with his uniform on, he looked so sharp,” said Burns, the youngest of eight children. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Today, as she tends to her duties in Malibu’s Los Angeles County Fire Station 70, the 28-year-old Santa Monica resident looks sharp herself, wearing not only the pressed and creased blues of a county firefighter, but the smile of a woman who is exactly where she wants to be.

Former Track Athlete

Burns, a UCLA sociology graduate and former track athlete, this week became the first black woman firefighter in the county Fire Department, an accomplishment she has been striving toward for four years.

“After UCLA, I came to the realization that track and field was really not getting me anywhere, and my degree was really not what I wanted, so I went back to my old dream--to be a firefighter,” said Burns, who stands a slender 6 feet tall.

She and three other women who met while applying to be firefighters at various departments started a support group they called Professional Black Female Firefighters of Southern California.

None of them were firefighters at the time, but they wanted each other’s support as they tried to break into the traditionally male profession, she said, explaining that “you don’t meet too many females” applying to be firefighters.

Eye on County Spot

Professional Black Female Firefighters of Southern California now has 22 members, including five firefighters, three paramedics and two training in the county academy, she said. All four original members achieved their goal and are serving in Compton, Inglewood, Los Angeles and, with Burns’ appointment, the county.

Burns was first hired in Oxnard in 1985 and last year transferred to the Inglewood Fire Department. But she always had her eyes on the Los Angeles County department, the area’s largest and best-paying, because of its opportunities for promotion and for performing a variety of tasks, she said.

County Fire Department jobs are coveted, so when Burns heard that the department was having one of its rare entrance examinations, she jumped at the chance, she said. After passing a battery of written, oral and physical examinations, she was accepted into the Fire Department’s academy, which the county requires for all of its potential firefighters.

The only woman in her class of 36, she finished the department’s grueling 10-week firefighting course this fall among the top four graduates. Burns and her classmates spent close to 12 hours a day at the Los Angeles County Fire Department Academy in East Los Angeles, running, putting on oxygen tanks, laying heavy water hoses and raising ladders, as well as studying in the classroom.

‘Just Like the Guys’

“The training captains treated me just like the rest of the guys,” she said. “But somewhere down the line I felt like I had to do more. No one had to say anything. But I felt that, because I put myself in the position of filling a traditional male role, I had to show I could do the job better than most of the guys.”

Her classmates nicknamed her “Flo Jo,” after Florence Griffith-Joyner, the glamorous Olympic gold medalist. “You don’t have to look like a man to be a firefighter,” she said.

Out of the county’s 2,200 firefighters, six are women, according to recruitment coordinator Capt. Floyd Hoffman, who added that he hopes to recruit more women at the next entrance examination early next year.

Burns said the department has been very supportive of her.

Being one of the few women firefighters in the department, “you get used to being around the guys,” she said, adding that they are all friendly toward her.

The veteran firefighters at her station “really like to teach,” she said. “I could ask them anything--even during their off-time--and they would help me.”

Time Practicing

After three days on the job, she said she is eager to fight her first fire with her new company.

She spends her spare time at the station practicing donning her oxygen tank and mask and raising 1-person ladders. “They like to see that from rookies,” she said, smiling and nodding toward the veteranfirefighters in the next room.

Burns said she and her husband, Jesse, both had their prayers answered this year. While she was in the academy, he was in Mexico playing professional basketball.

“We prayed about it for a long time, so when it happened, we said, ‘This must be it,’ ” she said.

“My husband has always been very supportive of me,” she said. “I’m glad women are getting into fire departments, because it’s kind of defying the imaginary law that women belong in the kitchen.”