Burbank Joins Pasadena, Glendale in Sunday’s Women’s Fire Academy as Enrollment Nearly Doubles

The Burbank Fire Department joined Pasadena and Glendale this weekend as co-host of the 2nd Annual Women’s Fire Academy, completing a “Tri-City” partnership that enrolled approximately 70 women for two days of hands-on firefighting and emergency medical training at the Jefferson Training Center.

The expansion brings all three departments that jointly own and govern the Verdugo Fire Communications Center — a regional 9-1-1 dispatch hub serving 13 cities — into a shared recruitment effort aimed at a profession where women remain significantly underrepresented. Women make up roughly 6% of the Pasadena Fire Department’s staff, according to the Pasadena Weekly, and approximately 4 to 5% of career firefighters nationally, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

The free, two-day program, held Saturday and Sunday at 1500 E. Villa St., puts participants through station rotations in hose handling, ladder operations, forcible entry, search and rescue, and EMS procedures — all under the supervision of firefighters and paramedics from the three departments.

Battalion Chief Jodi Slicker, who is coordinating the academy, is the first woman to hold that rank in the Pasadena Fire Department’s 139-year history. She was promoted in late 2025 after 19½ years with the department, during which she became PFD’s first female Firefighter of the Year in 2023 and served as only the department’s second female captain, promoted in 2016.

The academy nearly doubled its enrollment from its inaugural joint edition. The first Pasadena-Glendale collaboration, held April 26 to 27, drew 45 women to the Jefferson Training Center, according to the Glendale News-Press as cited by Pasadena Now. That program was limited to women ages 18 to 25. This year’s edition is open to all women 18 and older, according to a City of Pasadena announcement.

Slicker predicted the Burbank partnership after the 2025 academy. “I see us maybe joining forces with Burbank as well… because we work very closely together as departments,” she said at the time.

The three departments’ collaboration is rooted in longstanding institutional ties. Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena — formally known as the “Tri-Cities” — co-own the Verdugo Fire Communications Center, which is housed at Glendale Fire Station 21 and governed by the fire chiefs from all three cities, according to the City of Glendale. The departments share mutual aid agreements and operate under a “no borders” dispatch protocol.

“I think what prompted it was we realized that women in both cities are underrepresented in the fire service,” Slicker said after the 2025 academy. “Working closely with Glendale — and them being our neighboring city — we thought that if we combined forces, we could reach out to a greater real estate, so to speak, to capture women that are interested in the fire service.”

One participant at the 2025 academy described the experience in a Glendale Fire Department video: “I felt like I didn’t know any other women that wanted to do the same thing as I wanted to do. And knowing these programs, I took full advantage of them.”

Slicker, who joined PFD in 2006 as a firefighter and earned her paramedic license in 2009, also mentors aspiring firefighters at the Santa Ana College Fire Academy on her days off, according to Pasadena Now. During the January Eaton Fire, she dispatched 500 calls in 24 hours, according to Pasadena Magazine.

Female representation in firefighting has moved only incrementally. A National Report Card on Women in Firefighting recommends that women make up 17% of first responders — a benchmark not met by any of the three Tri-City departments or by the profession nationally, according to the report.

Slicker said her measure of success is practical. “If we can capture two, three, four recruits or participants and actually hire them, I think that’s a success,” she said after the 2025 academy. “And just overall, just empowering them to even move on to other cities if they get hired. So that’s a success for us if we just uplift them and empower them.”

The academy takes place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days at the Pasadena Fire Department Jefferson Training Center, 1500 E. Villa St. Media coverage is invited on Sunday, April 12.

Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin recognized Slicker publicly during Women’s History Month in March, according to a City of Pasadena newsletter.

“I think this allows women to realize that this is a career that they can actually pursue because they see the females that are actually hired to come out and instruct them, and then that encourages them, that empowers them to then go pursue this career,” Slicker said.