Yes Ma'am: Meet the New Assistant Fire Chief

Jacqueline Lilley-McCammon remembers the day she decided she wanted to be a firefighter. It was the day of her father’s funeral.

That morning, the house where she grew up in Pocono Township, Monroe County had flooded. Water in the basement was as high as the electrical junction box. Her mother called the fire department for help and help they did.

By the time the family arrived home from services, the water was gone and the house was livable and ready for guests.

But Lilley-McCammon didn’t just become a volunteer firefighter. She made it a career, becoming the first woman firefighter in Bethlehem history in 1988. She became the first woman captain in department history in 2010.

Lilley-McCammon made even more history on Wednesday when she was sworn in as an assistant fire chief. That isn’t just a first for a woman in Bethlehem, it’s a first for women in the Lehigh Valley, according to Mayor John Callahan, who presided over the swearing in ceremony.

Firefighting is an unusual career choice for women. Only 3.7 percent of all firefighters in the country are women, Callahan said. In fact, Lilley-McCammon has been the only woman in the Bethlehem Fire Department for almost all of her 24 years there.

But that also changed this week when Mary Alice Maguire, the daughter of Bethlehem Fire Chief George Barkanic, graduated Tuesday from the Allentown Fire Academy. Maguire is one of six new academy graduates to join the department this week.

Lilley-McCammon thanked Barkanic and Deputy Chief Robert Novatnack for allowing her to grow.

Asked if she ever faced trouble dealing with men in the male-dominated world of firefighting, Lilley-McCammon said: “It depended on the guy.”

When she first joined the department, “there were some old-timers who didn’t think I belonged there,” she said. “And there were some guys who were OK with it.”

One of the biggest problems is privacy, she said. Only one of the city’s fire stations has a ladies room and depending on where she was stationed, a call from Mother Nature could only be answered after doing a head count of her on-duty colleagues, she said.

“She worked hard,” said her husband, Marvin McCammon, himself a former firefighter and currently the captain of Pennsylvania Water Rescue. “But it takes support from the leadership to get where she got today.”

The couple met 20 years ago when then Firefighter Lilley was in a class on vehicle rescue, which McCammon taught. “I’m very proud,” he said.