A BARBIE doll is helping Wiltshire's fire service bridge the gender gap.

This month, a station in the south of the county took an innovative approach to tackling the problem – sharing a photo of one of its firefighters with a full face of makeup and painted nails, replicating the look of the famous toy she was holding.
It attracted national attention – and was accompanied by the statistic that only 4 per cent of firefighters in the world are female.

Now Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service's most senior ranking female, area manager Kathy Collis, has commented on the recruitment drive. 

“Historically being a firefighter isn’t a career that women tend to express an interest in as previous role models have centred around it being a male-dominated sector,” she said, referring to the photo posted by Amesbury Fire Station. 

“We are working to improve this from primary school age children to identify it as a career of choice and attract all diverse groups to have an interest in the varied roles within the fire service.”

“I think that the experience in this country is reflective from a recruitment perspective around the world but we are working hard to increase female numbers in this country by advertising proactively and this is an example of that."

The picture of on-call crew member Emily Rose holding a firefighter Barbie attracted some negativity among the positive comments but was wholeheartedly backed Kathy, who took the opportunity to pose with it herself.

She said: “The Barbie doll shows that women can be anything they choose to be as a career, like the doll that depicts Dr Sarah the vaccinator, this is a positive opportunity to introduce to young girls the thought process of being a firefighter in the future.”

Amesbury Fire Station has also recorded videos mocking a transfer deadline day football signing press conference to introduce a new on-call firefighter recruit, which, along with the Barbie picture, are designed to encourage applications. 

“The more positive media that we can put out to the public to widen the diversity of people attracted to firefighters roles the better, it is important that people are considering being a firefighter widely to assist with our recruitment programmes to attract particularly on-call firefighters where we have the most vacancies,” said Kathy. 

There are currently 51 female firefighters in Swindon/Wiltshire.