Among the 97 captains in the St. Paul Fire Department, Capt. Brittney Baker has made history as the only Black woman captain. Baker received a promotion to this role last month, and she has made it her mission to ensure that she won’t be the last.
As a result, she spends more time in the community than at the St. Paul Fire Department headquarters, showing her community what a firefighter looks like.
She told Fox9, “Being able to just possibly be that one positive influence that children may have in their lives, like that’s why I love it and what I do it for. And then EMS runs: I love taking care of patients.”
After her sister passed away from cancer, the trailblazer pictured herself working as a pediatric oncologist. However, after attending the EMS academy, she concluded it was her true calling.
“Started my journey in 2012 through the EMS academy, which is what I currently teach for the department. Been teaching for 11 years,” Baker told Kare11.
In 2018, she became the second Black woman to be employed as a fireman in St. Paul, where she was born and bred. Even though there are currently four Black female firefighters, she remembered the academy being challenging and that she had to ask mentors in other places for guidance.
“How to wear my hair, how to make sure that I can put my bunker stuff on differently because my body structure is different. How to make sure that ways that I would normally react or respond to something isn’t perceived the wrong way as ‘the angry black girl’ even though it’s just my passion and just how I talk,” she recounted.
Nonetheless, for the greater good, Baker has decided not to bask in the spotlight that comes with being first. She shared, “People tell me, like, I wanted to do this, I wanted to be a firefighter, I wanted to be a paramedic, and I didn’t know I could do it. I didn’t think I could do it until I saw you walk across the stage at your fire graduation, or when I saw you getting out the ambulance and coming to help my family.”
“Just remembering that I’m not doing it for me, I’m doing it for everybody else that doesn’t think that they can do it,” Baker added.
Since other races haven’t yet made headway in the department, the pacesetter predicts hers won’t be the last. She currently works as a mentor, volunteering each week at St. Paul Public Schools and acting as the department’s chief instructor at the EMS Academy, where she graduated previously.
Steve Sampson, the assistant chief of emergency medical services at the St. Paul Fire Department, said of her, “Everything she does is genuine and purely in the name of service. She’s an incredible role model for not only like folks out in the community but for our other department members and for me, myself.”
Baker advised those who want to follow in her footsteps, “Being the first is not easy. Sometimes being last is not easy. Sometimes being the second is not easy. But it’s something that you want to do. Don’t think about being the first, don’t think about being the second, don’t think about which number you are in it, go for what you want to do.”
