An FDNY officer who was told by her grandfather that “women shouldn’t be firefighters” is poised to become the highest-ranked woman uniformed firefighter in FDNY history, the Daily News has learned.
FDNY Battalion Chief Michele Fitzsimmons will be promoted to deputy chief on Friday, becoming the first woman in the department to achieve the rank. Women in the city’s Emergency Medical Service have already reached this milestone.
“It’s an exciting moment for me,” Fitzsimmons told the Daily News about her promotion to deputy chief. “I feel that it will be an opportunity for younger girls to see what’s possible. That’s the biggest thing.”
Fitzsimmons joined the FDNY in 2001 at 31 years old after working for a company that dealt with HIV and AIDS patients.
She had always wanted to become a firefighter but hesitated when she was younger after a conversation with her grandfather Michael Fitzsimmons — an FDNY battalion chief who retired in 1968. Her great-grandfather, Charles Roth, was also an FDNY firefighter.
“When I was 13, the first women were going into the FDNY. I found that so exciting,” she recalled. “I remember telling my grandfather that I wanted to be a firefighter and he told me, ‘Women shouldn’t be firefighters.’”
That old-school thinking may have delayed her, but didn’t deter her.
When she told her grandfather she had not only taken the test but was going into the academy, her grandfather joked “I guess it’s not just the brotherhood anymore.”
But he quickly championed her decision and cheered her on through her early years in the department.
“He had a super change of heart,” she recalled.
Fitzsimmons joined the department and was assigned to Engine 289 in Corona, Queens just four months before 9/11. Six members of her probationary class died in the terror attacks.
When she wasn’t fighting fires, she was studying for the next rank. She quickly moved up the ranks to lieutenant in 2007, captain in 2014, and battalion chief in 2020.
As head of Battalion 46 in Elmhurst,Queens she is currently the highest-ranking woman in the department, which currently has 177 women firefighters out of a total of about 11,000 firefighters and fire officers. She’s the second woman in the department’s history to achieve that rank. Her promotion comes months after Laura Kavanagh, the FDNY’s first women commissioner, stepped down.
The first woman battalion chief, Rochelle “Rocky” Jones, now retired, was one of the first women to join the FDNY in 1982. When Fitzsimmons heard she was being promoted to deputy chief, she reached out to Jones, one of her mentors as she moved up the department ladder.
“She was thrilled for me,” Fitzsimmons said.
Along the way, her sister, Maura Fitzsimmons-Gibbons joined the FDNY in 2006 and is currently assigned to Engine 274. Her husband is an FDNY lieutenant in a HazMat battalion.
“I see her sometimes when I respond to jobs,” Fitzsimmons said about her sister. “One time she was detailed to Manhattan and she was my driver.”
The FDNY’s gender barrier was smashed in 1982 when 41 women became firefighters after a historic federal gender-discrimination lawsuit.
The FDNY has struggled to add women to its ranks since 1982. Fifteen women graduated from the Academy in 2018, the largest number of new female firefighters since that initial 1982 class. There are currently 177 women firefighters out of a total of about 11,000.
In 2022, Mayor Adams named Laura Kavanagh the department’s first woman fire commissioner. Kavanagh left the department in August.
When Fitzsimmons joined the FDNY, there were 33 women firefighters on the job, she remembered.
Her wife, grown children, and extended family will be in the stands cheering her on as she receives her promotion on Friday.
“My wife has made all of this possible,” Fitzsimmons said. “She’s been there for me and carried the weight so I could study. I don’t think a person who’s got a family on this job can thank their family enough for all the support they get.”
Also cheering her on will be Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker, who met Fitzsimmons on his first day.
“In the months since I have come to know her as a modest, professional, hardworking member of the FDNY,” Tucker said. “Her promotion to Deputy Chief in Fire Operations is a glass-ceiling shattering event: she is showing women all over our city that the leadership possibilities at the FDNY know no end. I congratulate her on this milestone accomplishment, and I know she will stand shoulder to shoulder with the best chiefs in our department.”
As deputy chief, Fitzsimmons will oversee a full division of firefighters and personnel. It’s a rank she hopes will inspire women already with the FDNY to take promotion tests.
“I want women on the job to know it’s possible,” she said. “I think there are still women who don’t see themselves in that role, but it’s becoming more common.”
She hopes to inspire more women to move up the ranks as the women currently on the rigs inspire young girls to become firefighters, she said.
“I think there are still women out there who don’t see themselves [as firefighters] but it’s becoming more common,” Fitzsimmons said. “The ability to see women on the rigs doing the job. It makes it seem obtainable.”