Breaking barriers through smoke and stereotypes: One woman firefighter's journey

When her daughters were younger, Debbie Beard would pick them up regularly from school. Self-described as “always the late mom,” she was more likely one of several moms who didn’t get their children on time. However, she was certainly the only mom who pulled up to the school dirty and smelling like wood smoke.

As she scrambled to balance work and life as a single mom, Beard never imagined that years later, in 2018, she would become the first, and so far, only woman to lead an incident management team as incident commander in the Southern Area, spanning 13 states. Beard works for the National Forests in Florida in Tallahassee.

“I think it’s both amazing and amazingly unfortunate that I’m the first female incident commander in the Southern Area,” she said. “I don’t see many women working their way up through the operations section, and I hate that. I got used to being the only woman in operations a long time ago, so I understand why it’s intimidating. But there are so many great supportive people out there ready to train and mentor others that I think they would be surprised at the level of support I’ve always found.”

From wildlife biologist to wildland firefighter

Beard began her U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service career on the Sam Houston National Forest in Texas as a wildlife biologist in 1992 where she was passionate about improving habitat for red-cockaded woodpeckers. But the forest needed more prescribed fire to help maintain an open canopy for the then-endangered birds. For a variety of reasons — staffing, funding and overall interest — the fire staff couldn’t support her work.

So, she began to pursue fire qualifications herself.

“Most of my friends and family outside the agency couldn’t understand why anyone would want to do hot, hard, dirty work and then sleep in a tent for days on end,” said Beard. “But I started going on fire assignments on hand crews and engines and instantly fell in love with the work, the travel and the people.”

Overcoming challenges and barriers

Beard eventually became a district fire management officer, but being a woman in the fire service wasn’t always easy. In fact, she found it, “alternately wonderful, terrifying and extremely difficult.”

“I met many, many men in my career who tried to make my life difficult. Harassment in all forms was common, most of which would make many people quit,” she said. “I always just dug in for some reason and stayed.”

Despite the negative work environment, Beard discovered that male detractors were a small group. Many more men in the fire world supported, encouraged and empowered her.

“I have always reminded myself that the jerks out there are in the minority,” she said.

In 1996, Beard took an opportunity to move to the National Forests in Florida, which had what she considered a model fire program. There she began working with the Southern Area incident management teams to become qualified as an interagency fire program manager. Emboldened and reassured by her teammates, Beard found herself setting a new personal advancement goal each time she became fully qualified in a position.

“I kept moving my goal, from division supervisor to operations sections chief and then finally to incident commander,” she said.

Balancing work and family

Of course, Beard’s progression in the incident command structure wasn’t quite that simple. It takes years to move up from division supervisor to incident commander, mostly because the only way to get qualified in each position is to spend weeks away from home year after year on incidents.

And, although traditional gender roles were changing, it was mostly men going on those much-needed assignments whereas women more often were staying at home to take care of their family.

“It’s very, very hard to be a woman in this line of work,” said Beard. “Your family suffers, your marriage suffers, and your day job suffers. It’s hard for people to understand why you would want to do it. And you’re constantly feeling like you must choose between your family and your job.”

Fortunately, Beard now has an “amazing” husband who has supported her professional development in all their years together.

“I tell people all the time, ‘It’s easy to go on a fire assignment for 2-3 weeks. The hard part is staying behind to manage the house, the kids, the dogs and the bills by yourself,” she said, “I truly would never be able to jump on a plane or in a truck at the drop of a hat without his unwavering support.”

Beard also credits her daughters for making her career possible. That may sound strange, given that spending Mothers Days, birthdays and other holidays on the road is the norm in the incident management world.

“My oldest daughter followed me into the wildland firefighting field,” Beard said with a smile. “Both of my girls are strong women. They have always supported me. They grew up thinking, ‘That’s just what moms do.’”

Finding her own leadership style

After completing multiple position task books over 25 years, Beard became a fully qualified incident commander in 2017. Even then, she wasn’t sure she was ready to take command of a 165-person incident management team. After all, every fire assignment or team she’d ever served on had a male incident commander. Beard struggled with how she could be a powerful leader when the only examples she’d ever seen were men.

Then she shadowed Incident Commander Bea Day (fs.usda.gov) on the Burro Fire in 2017.

“I was terribly intimidated at the prospect of successfully leading an incident management team based on my experiences and the images I had in my head,” Beard said.

“However, as soon as I got to the Burro Fire and told the team I was there to shadow Bea, all they could talk about was how she was such an excellent leader. When I asked, ‘What makes you describe her that way?’ they talked about what a great listener and how empathetic she was. It was so totally unexpected for me and gave me such a different perspective. It allowed me to cultivate my own leadership style based on those strengths.”

Beard became incident commander of the Type 2 Southern Area Gold Incident Management Team the following year, a team she had served on since 2010. When the Gold Team transitioned to a complex incident management team in 2022, Beard took another step up in the incident command system.

Paving the way for other women

In the quarter century it took to become incident commander, Beard realized she wasn’t just setting an example for her daughters or following her passion for fire, the landscape and her incident teammates. She also was, and still is, paving the way for other women interested in wildland firefighting.

“I try to remember the example I’m setting for the younger firefighters out there,” she said. “We have a lot of women coming into the fire organization as wildland fire apprentices and that is so encouraging. Maybe one of them will be the next female incident commander.”

When asked about the agency’s ongoing fight to provide a permanent pay increase for federal wildland firefighters, Beard nods in support.

“The pay definitely has not kept up with the cost of living,” she agrees. “But the Forest Service has always been home to me. I have loved every job I’ve had in this agency and the people have always been amazing to work with. I could have never imagined I would be where I am now. I never had a 5-year or 10-year goal. I have always been lucky to be presented with opportunities and been ambitious enough to take advantage of them. I’d be crazy to think of working anywhere else.”

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Debbie Beard is incident commander for Forest Service in Tallahassee