• Submitted by: admin
• Editorial Articles
• History
• 05 / 31 / 2007

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The first fire department in Cuba was created on November 13, 1696 in Placetas, Villa Clara province. Later, they were extended gradually to the rest of the country. There are no many data about the first accident smothered by a group of organized men; however, there is news about a women group for the same activity in the Havana town of San Nicolas de Bari.

In 1974the first fire department for women was officially constituted with the name Dotación del Cuerpo de Auxiliares de la Dirección de Prevención y Extinción de Incendios (Team of the Auxiliary Body for Fire Prevention and Extinguishing) .

Several women in Havana have taken part of that staff voluntarily. Elsa, the oldest is 80 years and remembers with nostalgia those fires extinguished in sugar cane plantations, houses and in other sites of the region. They still remember a sensational competition they won in 1975, only with one year of experience, in the National School of Firemen.

Today, those living in that small town continue being members of those peculiar women staff, the fact is that today they have changed their mission to train the new generation of fire women and to prevent fire that is the most important for them.

Their women linage could cause them some troubles when doing this job due to the disadvantage in relation to the physical strength of men, but they knew how to solve it and they still do it with the new generations through hard training. They also imposed to men, order and good manners inside the department what made them to become into better professionals and to have a mutual coexistence between men and women in the Fire Station of San Nicolas de Bari.