Nancy Innes
In 1992, there were no women firefighters in the Surrey Fire Services. That all changed when Nancy Innes and Isabel Ruediger decided firefighting looked like an exciting career. The two were hired in a group of 17 firefighters, blazing a trail for other female firefighters to follow.
When asked about what it was like Nancy says she didn’t realize when she applied that there were no women firefighters in Surrey. “It was a surprise,” she says. “There was a lot of press at the time. But things settled down when we started training and everyone saw we could do the job just as well as the guys.”
Nancy was 26 years-old when hired. She had completed her chemistry degree at Simon Fraser University and played a few years of professional basketball in Germany and New Zealand. Both athletic and intelligent, she really could have done anything but hadn’t quite decided on a career. One day at the SFU athletic center, she saw a poster that advertised Surrey Fire was hiring. “That sounds pretty cool,” she thought to herself. So she did some research and decided to give it a shot.
Twenty years later Nancy can’t think of anything she’d rather have done with her life. She’s now an Acting Captain, married to a Surrey firefighter and a mother of three. When asked what her favourite part of the job has been, she grins and says “The fires. It’s exciting and you have to figure out what you’re going to do because every fire is always different. Those calls really get the adrenaline going.”
Nancy credits the camaraderie she has experienced on the job as one of the things that has made the last 20 years so great. The shared laughter and jokes, while sometimes a bit dark, have always served to strengthen the bonds between her and her co-workers, or as she calls them, “her teammates.”
If you are interested in becoming a career firefighter, please contact Tim Dykeman of Surrey Fire Service Recruitment at 604-543-6739.
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