Laura Kavanagh Becomes FDNY’s First Female Fire Commissioner

For the first time, New York City's police and fire departments will be led by women. Laura Kavanagh was sworn in Thursday as the first female commissioner of the FDNY, almost a year after Mayor Eric Adams selected Keechant Sewell to head the police department.

As commissioner, Kavanagh will oversee the day-to-day administration of the largest fire department in the United States, along with its 17,000 employees and $2 billion budget. Her presence may also be a boost for female firefighters everywhere.

Before taking on the commissioner role, Kavanagh helped lead the agency's response to the Ebola outbreak in 2015 and the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020. She had been acting commissioner since Daniel Nigro, the previous head, retired in February.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams swore Kavanagh in as commissioner yesterday, commenting on the moment's significance for “every little girl, every mother who has just wanted their babies to have the same opportunities as others. Not to have a greater advantage but just not to have a disadvantage. Gender should not define who we are and what we can become.”

"This moment, me being first, only matters if I am not the last," Kavanagh said at the ceremony. In 2021, Adams appointed Keechant Sewell as New York City Police Commissioner, making her the first woman leader in her department's history. Adams acknowledged that it has been a long wait, stating at Kavanagh’s swearing-in, "In 2022, for us to still say ‘the first,’ that's an indictment on what we have been doing."

Kavanagh added, "This is a new look for the New York City Fire Commissioner, but we should remember that our department has changed very much over its 157-year history, and it's always emerged better for it over the years."

The appointment of a female commissioner is particularly meaningful because firefighting has traditionally been a man's world. Less than 5% of career firefighters are women. The typical explanation for the low female representation is that women don't have the strength to fulfill the extreme physical demands of the job. Our mental picture of the firefighter carrying someone out of a burning building is typically a man.

Yet, many women can meet the job's physical strength requirements. And some academics have questioned whether skills like warmth, patience and empathy for victims aren't equally as important as physical strength when it comes to firefighting. Only about 4% of calls to fire departments are related to actual fires. The large majority of calls are requesting medical assistance. Skills stereotypically associated with women, like warmth, patience and empathy, are often more valuable for these calls.

Nobody is suggesting eliminating the strength requirements; firefighters still need those skills. But studies have shown that emphasizing both sets of skills (physical strength along with warmth and compassion) helps eliminate bias against female firefighters. Indeed, at the swearing-in, Kavanagh alluded to her own combination of these skills, stating that her parents had given her "the exact right mix of love and toughness" for the job.

Researchers who interviewed firefighters have concluded, “Almost all the female firefighters we talked to reported being treated as if they didn’t belong in the profession. Women firefighters routinely faced skepticism and criticism and reported needing to constantly prove themselves as exceptional under an intense spotlight.” Hopefully, Kavanagh’s presence will help people think differently about women in this profession.