Follows kin into FDNY

WHEN ELIZABETH Parks’ firefighter cousin took her with him to his firehouse, the little girl fell in love with the job.

“Since I was a little, little girl, I was always dying to be a part of the FDNY,” Parks, 31, told the Daily News. “I never thought this could actually happen. A lot of hard work and dedication were able to keep me going. I always ran into pretty positive people who always were very motivating. They told me to stick to it though. In the end I got in.” Parks (photo) is one of five women who will join nearly 300 probationary firefighters who graduate Wednesday from the department’s fire academy, the most women to join the FDNY at once in more than a generation.

For 18 weeks, Parks, Amy Delmore, Tyeisha Pugh, Eniola Brown and Jennifer Zaino dragged dummies, pulled heavy hoses, climbed ladders and went through countless firefighting drills. They will be promoted during a ceremony at Brooklyn’s Christian Cultural Center in East New York. Their promotion brings the FDNY’s total number of female firefighters to 58, the department’s largest total ever.

That means .5% of the FDNY’s 10,200 firefighters are women. While that’s the largest percentage ever for women in the department, it’s still among the lowest when compared to major cities across the country. In 1982, 41 women were hired by the FDNY through a gender discrimination lawsuit that ushered in New York City’s first women firefighters. In more recent years, the department has launched an aggressive recruitment campaign aimed at attracting women and people of color.