1 of 4
Photo by Savannah Schmidt.
Brooke Burback completes a search-and-rescue exercise at the Over the Mountain Regional Training Center in Mountain Brook on Oct. 1.
2 of 4
Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Brooke Burback gears up in her air mask for a rescue exercise at the Over the Mountain Regional Training Center in Mountain Brook on Oct. 1.
3 of 4
Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Firefighters, including Burback, pull a dummy out of a burn building.
4 of 4
Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Burback chats with the recruits’ class president, Jackson Trotman.
“I’m just gonna go for it” is an unlikely phrase to come to mind when confronted with the danger of fighting fires.
However, 22-year-old Brooke Burback’s words encapsulate the intelligence, fearlessness and strength needed to become the first female firefighter in Mountain Brook in over 10 years.
Born and raised in Chelsea, young Burback was enamored by her father’s childhood wish to become a firefighter. “We used to be so nosy,” Burback laughed, remembering how she and her father drove behind fire engines to watch them work.
“I spent my whole life playing sports, always outside, always working hard,” Burback said. After attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham on a full scholarship to play softball, she transferred to the University of North Alabama and finished her sports career and marketing degree.
When Burback selected her major, she thought, “Oh everything needs it.” Yet, like many former athletes, Burback struggled to acclimate to the low-activity, 9-to-5 workday.
“I got my degree, went to the office, but I just couldn’t sit still for 9 hours a day,” she said. “I used to joke with my friends, ‘I’m just going to quit and go be a firefighter.’”
Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Brooke Burback gears up in her air mask for a rescue exercise at the Over the Mountain Regional Training Center in Mountain Brook on Oct. 1.
While her dream started as a joke about escaping the slog of the office, a conversation with Chief Chris Mullins of the Mountain Brook Fire Department brought Burback’s fantasy to life.
Before she could start running into burning buildings, though, Burback was required to complete a challenging program with daily tests, physical training and education from certified firefighters. In August, she started the 10-week training program at Over the Mountain Regional Training Center.
Justin Baker, the lead instructor at OTM-RTC, commented on Burback’s showing throughout the training camp. “She passed the assumption today, which was huge,” he said during an interview on Oct. 1. “She passed the spaghetti drill yesterday, which is another mandatory one.”
Burback reflected on the spaghetti drill, saying, “They take all these hoses and throw them all in the building and they’re all intertwined. The fire is going, there’s smoke, it’s pitch black. They hand you a hose line and they say, ‘Find your way out.’ So you can’t stop, and you’re about 200 feet in and you’re on the hose line and you’re second-guessing yourself. ‘Is this ... did I switch? Am I on the right line?’ But you have to block it out and keep going.”
While Burback entered the training without prior firefighting experience, she felt confident that her athletic background had prepared her by embedding the desire to succeed into her conscience.
When her teammates in college said, “Let’s just relax, we have the day off,” Burback would counter, “Nah, let’s go to the field, let’s go hit, let’s do something.”
Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Firefighters, including Burback, pull a dummy out of a burn building.
In contrast to the other raw recruits, Burback’s discipline from waking up to go to weights, class and softball practice fostered mental and physical strength that forced her to lock in when she was overcome with exhaustion.
“The physical hardest thing is doing everything on air,” Burback said. “You are not very conscious of the air around you when you’re just walking around. But when you have the SCBA [self-contained breathing apparatus] mask on, you’re very conscious of when you breathe in, that’s when you get your air. You have to be really conscious of how much intake you have, your breathing and the next station to get to.”
Burback received high marks for her efforts from Baker, pushing past each test with the end goal of her graduation in mind. Still, the mental wear and tear stuck with Burback throughout the camp as she realized that, unlike in softball, the fighting does not end after seven innings. The opponent will not back down without first taking her mind and body to its breaking point.
“Mentally, it’s pushing yourself harder than ever,” she said. “I mean, I’ve done so many HIIT [high-intensity interval training] workouts, so many things in college where you’re just like, ‘Ugh, keep going, keep going, keep going.’ Here, it’s really like, ‘Keep going. You have to. You don’t get to stop.’”
At one point during the training camp, Burback could not help but be in awe of the power of the flames. “We did a flashover in the burn box,” she said. “We were all sitting in there as a class, all bunched up and you could see the flames just roll. I remember I told my dad, ‘Do you ever sit underneath a wave in the ocean and you just kind of watch it go over? It’s just like that but with flames.’”
Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Burback chats with the recruits’ class president, Jackson Trotman.
In the intensity of those situations, a clear head and an awareness of the threat remain crucial to survival.
When asked if she ever felt afraid, Burback answered, “I think you’d be crazy not to get scared. There’s excitement, it’s fun and it’s interesting. But every now and then, you’re going to sit there and ask, ‘How much air do I have left? Am I good?’”
Increased breathing from overexertion or fear drains the limited oxygen supply, so Burback learned to rely on her tactics for mental regulation during softball games.
“When I used to go up to bat, I could feel myself shaking a little bit on the first step out of the day. Then I’d think, ‘Stop, breathe, reset. Hold five,’” Burback said.
Even though the training fires at OTM-RTC occur in a controlled environment, Burback said each trainee faced difficulty and dangers during simulations. “I had just gotten done with a test, and you look over and somebody’s kind of getting worked on,” she said in reference to a trainee who was tended to by medical staff. “So you don’t realize at the moment the stuff we do is dangerous.”
With new knowledge, strength and maturity in tow, Burback is set to graduate from
OTM-RTC in November. As the first woman to assume the firefighting role at Mountain Brook Fire Department in over a decade, there are some assumed disadvantages from her position in a male-dominated profession.
Burback, on the other hand, refuses to let others use gender as an excuse to distinguish her from her male coworkers. She maintains that women are more than capable of achieving this position.
“I love all the guys here. Physically, it’s just wanting to do as much as they do. You want to push yourself more to show the guys up. But everyone has their own challenges. It’s knowing your strengths with that, like I know I’m going to get through faster on the floor scooting through,” Burback joked.
“There’s the stigma that women are emotional, but I don’t see it a lot,” she said. “I had three older brothers, played sports, my dad was hard on me. I don’t see a big difference mentally or emotionally between the guys and me.”
While eyes may be on Burback to see how she matches up to her male counterparts, she holds to her inner confidence and pays no attention to the distractions that would prevent her from saving lives.
“My biggest thing is to know yourself,” Burback said in response to a question about career stereotypes. “You can have so many people talking and telling you, ‘You’re not going to be able to lift as much as them.’ And that’s OK. If you are wanting something that badly, go get it.”
For anyone stepping into a career where they feel underestimated or nervous, Burback had a final word of encouragement: “Go get it. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too small, or you’re not strong enough, or only men do this job. No. Nobody’s gonna stop you.”
