Diane Butt is the first female fighter the Osoyoos Fire Department has ever had. Although she doesn’t always like being woken in the middle of the night, Butt loves the mental and physical challenges that have come with joining the team. (Michele Weisz photo)
By Michele Weisz
Osoyoos Times
Diane Butt says that working full-time at Nk’Mip Cellars, having two young children and being a volunteer firefighter with the Osoyoos Fire Department (OFD) is all just “a good balancing act.”
As a member of the OFD for over four months, Butt is the first female firefighter in the department’s history, but she does not consider herself different than any other new recruit, nor has she been treated as such.
At under five-foot-four and 100 pounds, Butt does not fit the “stereotypical mould” of what most people think a firefighter would look like, but she is quick to point out that preconceptions should not deter others from believing that they could apply.
Butt says that she decided to apply to the department because she wanted to give back to the community that she has been a part of for six years and was looking for an “impactful” way to do that. She applied to join the department because she wanted “first and foremost” to challenge herself both physically and mentally and prove to herself that she was able to do it.
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Butt says that when she first told her children that she was thinking of joining the OFD, her 10-year-old son was a little scared and worried, but both of her children now understand the importance of what she does and are very proud of her.
“My daughter thinks it’s cool; she will stop and tell anybody.”
Butt smiles when she tells how her children run to get her shoes to help her to get out the door quicker when she is paged by the department, and her pride in them and of their enthusiasm for what she does is evident.
“That’s a great joy to have them be super stoked about it.”
Though not her intention, Butt is aware that she is a role model both to her own kids and to others.’ She says it would be great if “someone else gets from that ‘well I could do something too;’ somebody can look at me and go ‘she’s little and she could do that, why can’t I?’”
Butt says that one of the things she loves most about being a firefighter is the challenge and the excitement of learning something new all the time and the camaraderie shared by the members.
Because many of the OFD members have children, it’s “like an extended family,” she says, and like being part of a sports team where everyone has each other’s backs.
What she does not like so much is being woken up at three o’clock in the morning to answer an emergency call which, she says, can be disorienting.
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But the part of the job she hates most is getting a call and not being able to go. Whether it is because she is at work or with her kids, she says that to hear or know what is going on and to think, “I can’t do anything” is the worst feeling.
Butt says that the work is physically demanding and there is a lot of information to digest, but in her determination to do well and not “let anybody down” she sometimes makes things harder by pushing herself.
Every week after practice she looks over her notes and studies them and maintains a workout schedule so that she can handle the rigorous practices that she and her fellow firefighters endure.
“There’s stuff we do in practice that I say I need to work out to make sure this isn’t as hard next time.”
Butt says that she does not advertise the fact that she is a firefighter. She says that there will always be those that do not think she can handle the same things as the male firefighters, and some have said as much to her, but that most people have been supportive.
Her fellow firefighters, she says, are among those that have been supportive. They show their support by not letting her get away with anything just because she is a woman. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
