Southwest Washington Fire District Swears In Its 1st Female Chief

A southwest Washington fire district swore in Kristan Maurer as its first female fire chief Tuesday night.

Maurer grew up in Houston, Texas. Her family moved to Washington, where she went to Battle Ground High School. It was during a four-year paramedic program at Central Washington University where she first rode along with fire departments.

“I realized that I could be a paramedic and a firefighter, and both were really exciting to me,” Maurer said. “I got lucky. I kind of fell into it and fell in love with it.”

Maurer started working at Clark County Fire District 6 at age 25 as a firefighter. She’s always been working toward an administrative role, she said.

Related: Gaston Kicks Off 1st-Of-Its-Kind Female Firefighting Camp

"I realized that I could really make a difference in a department and in a community by moving into the administrative ranks," Maurer said. "And so that's where I saw myself progressing. I didn't know if I'd ever get the chief spot, but I'm really honored that I did."

She’s been with the district for about 21 years now.

At her district, she said, there are three career female firefighter-paramedics out of a crew of about 60 people. Nationwide, there are about 14,000 female firefighters, which makes up about 5% of the entire profession.

“Throughout my career I never looked at myself as really being different than a male counterpart or having different skills or anything,” Maurer said. “But now that I look at that and I hear women and girls talk about how exciting this is, and not only what I’m achieving, but what women are achieving in general, I’m honored to represent and be part of that.”