The sun was shining and it was a balmy 75 degrees with a light breeze on a Friday morning in East Jacksonville.
It was the perfect day to be outside and enjoying the weather —though maybe less so for the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department’s newest hiring class, which battled back heat and flames spewing up into that clear blue sky.
The controlled Class B industrial burn simulation was part of a standard training for new hires at JFRD.
Although the training was standard, the recruits were unique.
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Of the 44 people in the hiring class, five were women, accounting for about 11% of the initiates.
This number is also more than double the 4.7% of women in career fire departments nationally, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association in 2021.
Jacksonville exceeds that number with 222 of its 1,906 employees across 68 stations, or 11.6% of the department, being women as of 2024.
More women have joined the department in recent years, said Teresa Kinstle, Division Chief of Training at JFRD, a trend continuing with the current hiring class —— one of the largest numbers of women she’s seen in a single class.
Kinstle was 27 years old when she started at her first station in 2003.
Back then, the fire station didn’t have any women, but she said her first captain was supportive and made the job easier.
“My first day, I was driving the truck, and I’ll never forget the way people were looking up at me like ‘Is that female really driving that big truck?’” She laughed. “It was just like, ‘yeah, I am.’”
Kinstle said she always loved the medical field and, as a result, fire and rescue was always at the back of her mind as an option. She said she always had the right personality and disposition for a career with the fire department.
“I was always a tomboy,” she said, “and being outgoing helps. Most women in the department have strong personalities.”
If you can see it, you can be it
Born and raised in Jacksonville, Kinstle said she never wanted to leave the area and never felt she had to thanks to the opportunities for advancement within the JFRD that other departments don’t always have.
“I never thought I’d be a chief,” Kinstle said, “but I set high standards for myself. I’ve never said no because you never know where that path is going to take you.”
This is a common theme for women in the department.
Caitie Hopkins, 34, is a drill instructor and mentor to the class. One of seven drill instructors, it’s her job to watch everybody and help with corrections and discipline when she sees problems in the way an individual does something.
This hiring class was the first to have drill instructors, Kinstle said, and when Hopkins was hand-selected to help out, she immediately rose to the task.
“This job is all about giving back and paying it forward,” Hopkins said of her mentorship. “If anything, it amplifies my love for the job.”
Hopkins described having more groups of women in the department not as something to segregate them from the men but as a source of sticking together.
Hopkins said Chief Elly Byrd and Lt. Michael George were influential presences early in her career and made the department "feel like home."
Now, Hopkins is an inspiration to the next generation of recruits.
Jessie McLaren, 21, was looking for jobs where she could serve the community when she decided to make JFRD her goal — following in the footsteps of her great-grandfather, Paul Thomas, who was a JFRD engineer from 1982 to 2006.
McLaren, who now has Thomas’s old helmet, said being in a hiring class with other women has helped her feel a deeper sense of family, she said, knowing that she has made “friends to talk to forever.”
Molly McCarthy, 21, a Jacksonville native who worked in ocean rescue before coming to the fire department, said Hopkins’s mantra to exceed expectations has been an inspiration to her and the others since day one.
She said being with other women in the department has been fun because they get to bond over listening to “these guys all say weird stuff all day."
Recruitment and respect
“No man is going to treat you any different,” Kinstle said of the department. “People still see this as a man’s field because of the strength and stamina aspects, but you’re one of the boys here. Everyone always has respect for each other.”
Kinstle worked as a recruiter for JFRD for about eight years. During this time, she said, she went to high schools to talk about career options and often found herself talking to girls who played sports and encouraging their interests.
“Anytime we’re in the public view, girls congregate around [women in the department],” she said. “People, especially those who are more introverted, are more likely to come up to the women when you see them.”
Kinstle said the similarities in physical and team activities as well as the athletic and competitive atmospheres often made these girls more interested in fire and rescue careers.
“Some people think the idea of being surrounded by men can be a little intimidating, but most of them are open arms to you once they see how strong you are, especially when you’re stronger than some of them,” she said.
Valeria Healey, 22, agreed that the opportunity to prove herself was an attractive aspect of pursuing this career.
“You always gotta one-up the boys,” she said.
Healy said she joined JFRD because she wanted to be able to fix people’s problems and be someone who genuinely cared for others in some of the worst moments of their lives.
Many people who join the department have a connection to fire and rescue work already through either friends or family, making the career choice a bit more obvious.
Megan Reid, 28, is a recruit who took one of the more unusual paths to JFRD when she put on fire gear for the first time to walk into an 1,800-degree kiln.
For her senior thesis in the art program Jacksonville University, Reid had to pull out a large-scale ceramic project “at temperature,” a technique known as raku firing.
Afterward, she said being in the gear and serving the public appealed to her.
Having other women in the group has been helpful in the training process, she said. Even little things, like having someone to ask for a spare bobby pin, have increased the amount of support Reid has felt.
“Every single woman is so supportive and pushes you to be better,” she said. “We work for everything we have.”
Similarly, Hopkins didn’t come from any sort of public service or first responder background, as many of the recruits did. She said her mom was an artist and dad was a professional golfer, but both supported and encouraged her from day one.
She joined the department because she wanted to do a job she was proud of, she said, and doing work that was fun was a nice bonus.
Hopkins said Captain Nick Tyson put the bug in her ear to join when she was 21 years old and working with his daughter, but she didn’t start EMT school until she was 29 and joined the department when she was 31.
“I’m pretty stubborn,” she said. “I knew I wouldn’t quit if I joined.”
Different backgrounds, one goal
Kinstle emphasized the importance of fire departments to be representative of the communities they serve — whether that’s in gender, race or another area of background.
Despite the different backgrounds these recruits came from, they all had at least one thing in common: They all want to see how far they can climb in the department.
Zaporia Taylor, 32, was at a bachelorette party in Miami when she decided to join the Jacksonville fire department.
Taylor, from Fort Lauderdale originally, met Dallas Cooke, another woman in the department, in May 2022 and immediately decided to switch careers.
“I thought ‘I want to be like this lady,’” she said.
Taylor’s children, who are 12, 11 and 9, didn’t even know she was in fire school until she told them she was going to be part of this hiring class. Since then, it has been “tons of training, sacrifice, and time away from kids,” but the experience has been worth it, she said.
Now, she has her sights set high.
“I want to be captain,” she said. “I know I’m at the bottom right now and there’s a lot to learn, but I want to go all the way.”
Engineer John Verbeck, lead instructor at JFRD, said Taylor is on the way with how she “keeps everyone in line” in her hiring class.
Each person, despite preferring different specialty tracks, said she wants to make it as long and far into the department’s ranks as possible.
And that “sky’s the limit” attitude came from similar places for each of them.
Kinstle said her ultimate goal is to leave the department better than before her arrival to set the next person up for success.
“We’ve got to keep moving and bettering it for Jacksonville,” she said. “We’re constantly growing and learning. I’m gonna learn something new on my last day on the job.”
