19 firefighters killed battling Arizona wildfire.-- Or were 19 FIREMEN killed? The article does not mention women killed, so can we presume all (or most) victims were men?

literallyschmiteraly · 2013-07-01T07:26:33+00:00

I don't know why you are being downvoted at all. This phenomenon makes me so mad I almost posted about it myself.

19 heroic men died trying to protect property but we wouldn't want to make women feel bad about, well, anything.

YellaShoe · 2013-07-01T14:14:44+00:00

Don't know where everyone else is, but I'll explain mine:

Whether the firefighters are male or female is irrelevant to the story. It's sad because 19 people died. Whether they were male or female doesn't matter. Actually, I prefer the equality of the neuter noun. You'd have more of a point if the headline was "1 female firefighter tragically killed (and also 18 firemen)"

This is entirely separate from any underlying issues of society sending primarily men into harms way, a more valid argument.

shadowbanned6 · 2013-07-01T04:41:34+00:00

Gender. Of the 83 firefighters who died while on duty in 2011,. 82 were male and 1 was female. Multiple Firefighter Fatality Incidents. The 83 deaths in 2011 ...

http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/ff_fat11.pdf

Will the downvoters please comment? Is this a feminist subreddit?

Any indication that 50% of the victims were female?

http://www.fireengineering.com/health-safety/LODDs.html only males here

2013-07-01T04:28:17+00:00

Shit! That's terrible. I hope it doesn't get any worse.

I recently learned that the fires which ripped through Canberra 10 years ago weren't so much a wildfire as a fire tornado, which had never been seen before. 4 people died and over 400 homes destroyed.

Wayfaring_Raptor · 2013-07-01T16:07:03+00:00

It's pretty safe to presume that any wildland fire crew is going to be made up of mostly men. However, there was at least one woman serving with the Granite Mountain Hotshots. They haven't released names yet so we don't know if she was among the victims.

Ultimately it doesn't matter. Both men and women bravely lay their lives on the line to mitigate these out-of-control blazes, and 19 of these people became entrapped and experienced what undoubtedly felt like a long and excruciatingly painful last few minutes of their lives. It's a landmark wildland firefighting tragedy no matter who was among those lost.

Comments