Ku, born in 1988, grew up in southeastern Taiwan’s Taitung County. Her father and mother come from the Rukai and Amis tribes, respectively, two of the nation’s 16 officially recognized indigenous peoples. With her father’s encouragement, she trained to become a firefighter and now heads the Second Emergency Rescue Corps (SERC) in Anle District of northern Taiwan’s Keelung City.
“My father, who works in prison management, encouraged me to join either the military or the police. So I used my college entrance examination scores to apply to the Department of Fire Science in Central Police University’s [CPU] College of Police Science and Technology. In 2007, I was one of three female students, along with 27 male classmates, accepted onto the course. The college also includes a number of other departments covering forensic, traffic and maritime police disciplines. These enrolled a small number of women too.
My first year was exhausting because we studied firefighting, rescue procedures and wrestling. Maybe I was so tired all the time because I wasn’t very fit, not having done that much exercise at senior high school. I also wasn’t used to northern Taiwan’s cloudy and humid weather, which is very different to our climate back in Taitung. I didn’t have much opportunity to go back home to see my family and so I was a bit depressed for a while. But after my initial year, I got used to it and everything was fine.
My first posting was to Keelung City’s Fire Department in 2011. I worked in the Disaster Prevention Section and I spent most of my time in the office, just occasionally we’d go out into the community to talk about fire safety to local residents and schools. We’d also have to do on-site inspections when new buildings, like cram schools or warehouses, opened to make sure they met fire safety regulations. In 2016, after five years at that job, things got a lot more challenging because I was moved to front-line operations.
(Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
I was so nervous and stressed about the change in position to the SERC in Anle District that I couldn’t sleep properly. I was told about the new posting just two weeks before I made the move. I was used to taking instructions from the section chief; now I was the one giving orders. Fortunately, I learned a lot from senior squad members who had more experience. Our relationship is more like that between family members or friends rather than a superior and her subordinates.
We’ve had all sorts of assignments. Most recently, we put out a fire in a factory kitchen. We’ve been called out to catch snakes and remove wasp nests. We’ve also been asked to free a child from a locked car and occasionally to break down doors if people are trapped inside and could be in danger. We do recommend, though, that if you’ve just forgotten your key, you call a locksmith and not the fire service!
Each month, we stage drills in different places with other stations in Keelung. A few months ago we held one in the city’s Zhongshan District at a shopping mall where a lot of flammable stuff is stored. There are many things to consider in advance such as the deployment of firefighters and access for fire trucks to the site, etc. Before anything happens, we discuss all the logistics and details with the management and come to an agreement. Usually they welcome us doing these training sessions because it’s good practice in preventing and managing disasters.
I have to stay in good shape. Whenever there’s a major blaze, I’m responsible for leading my team members to the site so we can do everything that can be done to put out the fire. It’s possible that a female firefighter is less able to do more physically demanding jobs such as carrying a stretcher, although as a commander this isn’t such a concern for me. But I think women are useful when it comes to communicating in situations where tensions are raised. For example, people are less likely to lose their temper when they’re dealing with a female firefighter. This is kind of an advantage in my line of work.
The service in Taiwan has been growing more professional, for example the country established the National Fire Agency [in 1995], a step up from firefighting’s previous status as a division under the National Police Agency. A firefighter has to keep training and studying if they aspire to enter different areas of expertise such as emergency medicine, chemical disaster response or whitewater rescue. I’m still focused on learning and upgrading my skills. If I want to get promoted to Keelung’s SERC deputy leader, for example, I think it’ll take me about 10 more years and I’ll need to study a lot. I’ll have to take the TOEIC [Test of English for International Communication] exam or go back to CPU and earn a master’s degree.”
—interview by Pat Gao
Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw