Alex JohnsonQFSM (born 1967) is a British firefighter, named the "Most Influential Woman in Fire" at the Excellence in Fire and Emergency Awards in December 2019.[1] In January 2020, she started serving as the chief fire officer of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority (SYFRA).[2] When Johnson started out as a firefighter in Derbyshire in 1992, aged 24,[3] only 1% of firefighters in the UK were women. She said: "I never saw another female firefighter from one month to the next, there were so few of us."[4]
Career
Alex Johnson joined South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue as Assistant Chief Fire Officer in 2017, before being promoted to Deputy Chief Fire Officer in December 2017.[5] She had previously served with Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service for over 25 years, having joined as a firefighter in 1992.[6] At Derbyshire, she served at stations across the county and rose to the rank of Area Manager. She led the service's prevention, protection and inclusion work.[7] She also worked at Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service's training centre, as a Breathing Apparatus Instructor and a Group Manager for learning and development. She is a qualified Fire Protection Officer.[8]
Johnson is a member of the National Executive Committee of Women in the Fire Service (UK),[9] a not-for-profit organisation that aims to inspire, enable and develop women with the Service.[10] In the early 1990s, she attended her first Women in the Fire Service UK conference and the Fire Brigades Union women's school.[11]
Johnson highlighted those two events as a turning point, finding other women who had had similar experiences to her, and giving her a support network across the UK. She met women who held rank and realised she could make things change for the better, for both women and men in the service.[12] She has a passion for supporting other women, and mentors women within and outside of the fire service. She has also re-established South Yorkshire's equality and inclusion group.[13]
Awards and honours
In December 2019, Johnson was awarded Most Influential Woman in Fire at the Excellence in Fire and Emergency Awards.[14] In November 2019, she was runner-up in the Public Service category of the Guardian Leadership Excellence Awards.[15]
