Fire Battalion Chief

She took two different – though related – career paths to respond to fire and accident emergencies. This required her to be a ‘rookie’ twice but each time, she persevered from learning the basics to leadership including teaching the basics. 

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Linda Long-Cumberbatch (LL) was born in Philadelphia. She grew up in the city’s Olney section until moving with her family as a teenager to Ambler, a western suburb. 

EARLY INTERESTS

Looking back as an adult, LL recalled that her kindergarten class took a field trip to a firehouse, where she was awestruck by the large, red fire trucks. LL knew instantly that someday, when she was older, she wanted to drive a firetruck as her adult job. 

EDUCATION

LL’s formal education took the usual, first path of graduating from high school. Rather than immediately proceed toward further classwork at a college level, she decided to follow her childhood goal of working with firefighters. 

While pursuing her two career paths, LL eventually earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in emergency medical services and public safety, becoming an expert in emergency medicine, firefighting techniques and building construction.

FIRST CAREER PATH IS NEVER A BINDING COMMITMENT

To pursue her dream of driving fire trucks, LL knew she would have to start at the bottom of a fire fighting, related work crew. By the standards of her suburban town’s – mostly volunteer – firefighting company, LL was too young to be trained to enter burning buildings. So, she signed on as a probationary EMT (emergency medical technician) as a way to rush to fires and accident scenes to help care for trauma victims.   

EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES TECHNICIAN (EMT)

An EMT, or Emergency Medical Technician, responds to emergency situations by stabilizing patients before taking them to a medical care facility. Their main duties include 

• providing first-aid treatment, such as bandaging wounds;
•  provide life support care, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) when needed; 
• assess a patient’s conditions and provide initial treatment; 
• determine whether a patient needs to go to an ER or a trauma center; 

LL was intent on learning as much as she could to be an effective EMT, eventually promoted to ‘Paramedic Captain” and described by a fellow EMT as a “true trailblazer” because at that time, few women were involved in emergency medical services.

While responding to emergencies in ambulances will always be a useful public service, LL never abandoned her goal of driving large, red trucks to help put out fires. 

FROM STARTING OVER TO BECOMING A LEADER

Having started at the bottom of the list of responsibilities of an EMT, LL knew that transitioning her career to firefighting, would mean starting over again at the bottom of that second career path. 

Again, with the goal of becoming the best firefighter she could be, LL made history when she became the first female Fire Captain and later, head of a Philadelphia Fire Battalion. (A ‘battalion’ consists of several fire stations and multiple fire companies. A Battalion Chief has command over each fire station’s officers and each company’s officers as well as the uniformed firefighters.) 

In addition to demonstrating her physical skills under the duress of fire emergencies, LL was good at organizing and motivating people, becoming a popular instructor and mentor at the Philadelphia Fire Academy. “She was our momma hen,” long-time friend and fellow firefighter Jen Leary said in an online story, “and it was nice to be around someone like that.”

CHALLENGE – MISOGYNY (PREJUDICE AGAINST WOMEN)

Editor: Misogyny is a form of sexism that can keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the social roles of patriarchy (male dominance). In its worst form, misogyny is violence against women. Misogyny often operates through sexual harassment, coercion and psychological techniques aimed at controlling women, and by legally or socially excluding women from full participation in an organization. 

While LL never experienced physical coercion, she was often keenly aware – before she had the chance to prove herself as courageous as men while fighting fires as a team member alongside men in burning buildings – that some men thought she would be too weak or emotionally squeamish to perform the full duties of a firefighter under all possible circumstances. She spoke often of the doubters she encountered in her early firefighting years and of her resolve to prove them all wrong!

CHALLENGE – RISK TO HEALTH

Despite wearing heavy-duty face masks, firefighters are constantly exposed to smoke and occasionally to fumes from burning chemicals. 

After fighting a chemical fire for 14 straight hours two years earlier, LL was diagnosed with glioblastoma (brain cancer), causing her to retire from all employment duties, prematurely at age 56.  

No one can know with absolute certainty the cause of a disease but a scientist specializing in epidemiology might reasonably offer an expert opinion (during a claim for worker compensation benefits) that LL’s prolonged and intense exposure to chemicals was a significant contributing factor to her ultimately fatal disease. 

Fortunately for firefighters in general, only a small percentage are ever injured or develop diseases causing them to withdraw from this valuable public service.

ADVICE WHEN FACING CHALLENGES

LL’s advice to other people facing big challenges, especially young women, was “Just do it… Just try it. I think people often regret the things they haven’t done.”

SIDE HUSTLE

When not rushing to fires, LL made custom jewelry, which she sold in consignment shops. One store owner said in a tribute to LL, “It was always a joy to work with Linda.”

More related to her profession, LL was active with an emergency pet relief team and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) national advisory council. 

CAREER SATISFACTION

Wherever she worked, Chief LL was motivated, she told a newspaper in 2024, by challenging herself to overcome and achieve, and for those around her, to keep up. “It’s such a sense of accomplishment when you go into that dark, smoky, hot room and put the fire out as part of a team,” she said. “Then it’s over, and you can look around and say, ‘Look what we did. We stopped it.”

In a tribute to LL following her death at age 60, the president of the Philadelphia firefighters’ union said about LL, “Her grit and determination were inspirational. She touched the lives of thousands of people through her work.”

Friends and former colleagues called LL “an amazing woman” and a “true warrior.” One friend said, “Her legacy is inspirational.”

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This career story is based on an obituary written by Gary Miles, published by The Philadelphia Inquirer on March 27, 2025, plus online research, including Wikipedia.