The United Kingdom’s top woman fire officer has been presented with a long service and good conduct medal by London Fire Brigade after serving for 20 years.
Danielle (Dany) Cotton joined the Brigade in 1988 and is now the highest ranking operational women in the UK fire and rescue service. Dany said; “I am proud of being the highest ranking operational woman in the UK fire service. “I hope I can inspire other women to consider firefighting as a good career choice and to also encourage existing women firefighters to actively seek promotion.”
She completed her A’ levels and left college at 18, unsure of what career to pursue. Dany said; “I knew I didn’t want an office job but when I left college I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I saw an advert in the paper to become a firefighter and applied.”
It took Dany a year to go through the selection process and on her first day of training she did have her doubts. Dany added; “I did think, ‘What am I doing?’ The training was hard both physically and mentally but I really enjoyed it. I was always under the impression that I was being scrutinised more closely than the men to see if I was going to perform. But I absolutely loved it.”
Her most rewarding experience was being directly responsible for saving the lives of a young couple from a fire in Purley and the most traumatic came just five months after leaving training school, when she attended the Clapham rail crash, one of the worst train disasters in the UK. Dany recalls; “Anytime someone has lost their life, or had their property and possessions destroyed is always upsetting. Probably the incident that affected me most was an older lady who had tried to extinguish a fire in her flat and got badly burnt. She was conscious and talking and I stayed with her until the ambulance crew arrived. Sadly she died a week later.”
She also attended the Cutty Sark fire. Dany said; “When I received the pager message I called our Control Centre and I remember saying ‘oh no, please tell me the Cutty Sark isn’t on fire’ and they said, ‘we have received 16 additional calls and the first crew to attend has asked for six fire engines to be sent, so yes.’ It was very sad to see because I had served in the Greenwich borough for a number of years and couldn’t believe that such a hugely important historical artefact was on fire. The press response was phenomenal and within two hours we had over 100 media crews from all over the world. I gave press interviews to the media including Russian and Japanese television.”
Starting at Wimbledon Fire Station, Dany has risen through the Brigade and is currently a Deputy Assistant Commissioner. Her role is wide ranging and she deals with the day-to-day running of the fire service. Dany continued; “I manage anything that affects our fire stations and I also run a team who deal with placements following individual’s promotions.”
Commenting on the changing role of the fire service, Dany said; “People’s attitude to women serving as firefighters has improved immensely. When I joined there were very few women in the service and some people were quite wary and suspicious so that was a challenge. Things have improved greatly and we now have over 200 women firefighters in London.”
Dany’s latest award comes after being the first woman firefighter in the UK to be awarded the Queens Fire Service Medal in 2004 and being named Outstanding Public Servant of the Year in a competition organised by Public Finance Magazine and the Cabinet Office in 2002.
Dany Cotton, 39 lives in Orpington, Kent. She concluded; “I have really enjoyed my career and I have laughed a lot. Working for the fire brigade really makes a difference, it sounds corny but you can really save someone’s life or prevent a fire from happening.”
Notes for editors
Dany was presented with her medal from the London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson in a ceremony at Southwark Training Centre.
