Fire Station Sleeping Quarters

NEED FOR SEPARATE MALE AND FEMALE SLEEPING QUARTERS

Currently at the Winchendon Fire Department there is one large bedroom and one shower for all staff to share. This setup worked well when the station was built and there were minimal staff on shift.  It was also based on a time when there were few women in the fire service.  Currently Winchendon is fortunate enough to have a great female full time firefighter as well as other female per diem firefighters.  Unfortunately they are thrown into the mix of everyone in the same room and forced to share shower and toilet facilities with the male firefighters.  These arrangements are often uncomfortable for both the men and the women.  Our department has had female firefighters work shifts only to feel they needed to sleep in a chair in the dayroom to give the males their privacy.  Forcing any firefighter to share accommodations like this is disrespectful. 

The proposed new station would allow for each firefighter on shift (of any gender or non-gender) to have their own bedroom.  These bedrooms would allow for basic on shift privacy and would give members a private area to dress and to sleep on the overnight.  It would also give members an area to decompress after an especially bad call.  Some members currently have very different sleep habits which this setup would accommodate.  The Town has already shown the understanding of the need for separate areas by putting a male and female locker room in the police station.  By doing this same thing in the fire station it would allow the town to show that they really are an equal opportunity employer instead of showing the female firefighters that they are expected to conform to existing conditions.  This expectation is NOT RIGHT and really must be changed.