NORTH BATTLEFORD — Early October, while the Battlefords residents were gathering to learn about fire prevention, the same week the News-Optimist sat down with North Battleford Fire Department (NBFD)’s first and only female firefighter Misty Dawn Hulit, who is also a mother of a 15-year-old daughter.
Hulit, a First Nations woman from Manitoba, spent her early years as a volunteer firefighter in Cochin, before joining NBFD. She has been a full-time firefighter serving North Battleford residents for one and a half years.
She spoke to the newspaper what her six years in North Battleford on the fire lines mean to her.
Q: What inspired you to become a firefighter?
A: I always figured I'd be involved in some kind of emergency service. I just wasn't sure what exactly. I looked at the police, military, and then I found fire, and I just fell in love with it.
Q: What does a typical day as a firefighter look like for you?
A: It can vary from day to day, obviously. We have our list of chores and inspections, but if we get a call, that's all out the window, and we're in the truck and out the door. Some days, it's just cleaning or doing business inspections, which also gets us out in the public.
Q: How does it feel being the first and only female firefighter in the department?
A: Amazing. I don't know what I expected really. I guess I just tried really hard to work to get here and fit in as one of the crew. This [Being a full-time member here] was the ultimate goal.
I noticed sometimes people are a little more receptive when they realize that, you know, there's a woman, (that) men and women both come. They're not just looking at: ‘oh, the guys are here.’ It doesn't really set me apart, but I feel some people are more comforted when they find there's a woman that's involved with helping them.
Sometimes (during school visits), I know there's a lot of them [the school kids] stare a lot, and they're like, ‘oh my gosh, there's a girl!’ which makes it fun.
Q: What would you say to young girls who dream of becoming firefighters?
A: I just want to tell them that they can do it. If this is a dream of theirs, they absolutely can do it. It's attainable. You work hard and you can get pretty much anywhere you want to be.
Q: What were the challenges, if any, of being a woman working in a fire department?
A: There's sometimes you're smaller than the other guys, and you have to work a little harder to compensate for that, physically. But work smarter, not harder. And the guys are really great. We all work together well.
Q: What kind of training do you do to stay in shape?
A: Well, we try and get in a workout every single day and hit the gym when we're not on shift. Our training can be anything from taking the boat out on the river to working at our training grounds.
Q: What is it about firefighting that has kept you doing it for six years?
A: It's obviously something I love. There's a lot of variety. There's a quote I'm reminded of all the time: ‘Some people don't know if they make a difference, but in this line of work, you always know you've made a difference in someone's life, in some way.’ It’s really rewarding. It gives me a purpose, a goal—it’s not just a job, it's who you are. I don't know if I could do anything else at this point. I just keep building and moving forward. I'm happy where I am, and I'm working on getting my paramedic certification now, so I'm just adding on little steps.
Q: How do you decompress after a tough shift?
A: I’d say most of our calls are good. They're the fun ones like the cat in the tree or the community events, or, you know, parades. I love parades.
But when we do other bad calls, I guess that's when we band together as a shift, because they've been there with us. So we talk about it, we are. We just sit there with each other, sometimes just waiting on scene for a while, depending what it is, but I think it's more the togetherness is what gets us through it.
If we need to talk, we'll be like, ‘hey, remember that call?’ The chiefs and the captains are really good at checking in, ‘how are you doing? Are you doing? Okay? Do you need anything? Can we help you through this?’ But that's mostly the group atmosphere, the togetherness that makes it so much easier.
Firefighter pay in N.B.: steady salaries, overtime and unexpected costs
As of July, base monthly pay for entry-level firefighters with the City is $5,854.77, which is set to increase by approximately 3.3 per cent in 2025, according to the Collective Bargaining Agreements signed between the City and Firefighters’ Union last year.
Wages for firefighters are based on years of service, with no additional hazard pay beyond their standard salaries—similar to the pay structure for police officers.
Overtime pay for North Battleford firefighters is tied to the number and seriousness of the emergency calls they respond to. While the department plans for typical overtime based on past years’ data, unexpected events can cause big changes.
For instance, when the fire department responded to wildfires in Saulteaux and Moosomin First Nations last year, the costs were covered by the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency. But when large fires happen within the city—like the ones at Quick Falls Collision and the Canadian Motel—the City picks up the tab.
“I'm extremely proud of my department. They worked through some pretty arduous conditions and some heavy smoke conditions… They did a fantastic job, and we did bring in some heavy equipment that greatly facilitated the extinguishment of that fire,” said Fire Chief Lindsay Holm in a city council meeting Oct. 15 of the Canadian Motel fire.
The firefighters’ work can go largely unseen in the wide range of services they provide. The work, while demanding, has its rewards, Hulit said.
“Most of our calls are good. (We try to) focus on the little things. Sometimes they matter the most,” she said. “[Little things] make the biggest difference.”
