Next Monday, January 27, at 5:30 p.m., the main officer Rocío BeníTez will take over as head of the Melo Fire Department, replacing the chief commissioner Jonathan Rosawho will take the position of regional head based in Treinta y Tres.
The ceremony will be attended by the commander of the Interior Fire Department, Chief Commissioner Richard Da Silva, who also on Tuesday the 28th, at 10:00 a.m., will formalize Rosa’s inauguration in her new position at the Treinta Fire Department. and Three.
The invitations for both ceremonies have already been sent to the authorities and representatives of the vital forces of both departments.
Officer Benitez
He finished high school, entered the Officers School and graduated in 2015. He worked for a year and then when he turned 19 he entered the National Police School in Camino Maldonado and in the second year he chose Firefighters. He went through an admission test, there 15 were chosen and 8 were selected, which were the vacancies from a batch of 80 applicants.”
His youth is no obstacle to the respect of his subordinates. There are only women on the Officer scale and there are currently 21 women in all of Uruguay
Rocío, before being the officer in charge, as a cadet, went out to the fires to continue training.
Once they are received, in the training part they rotate through various detachments until they reach a destination.
He was Head of Detachment in Casavalle, Belvedere, he did an internship in Maldonado all summer for his training.
“There are no women here,” they warned her, but today she is the officer in charge of 21 firefighters from the Solymar detachment.
The media outlet EL METROPOLITAN interviewed her in 2018. “When she was a teenager in Maldonado she passed by the Fire Detachment every day, in some way she was fascinated by that world of emergencies, help and teamwork. One day he took heart and went in to ask how to join the Fire Department. “There are no women here,” was the brief and lapidary response. Today Rocío Benítez, 24 years old, is the Assistant Officer in charge of the Solymar Fire Detachment and, being the youngest, in 2018, she had 21 men under her command. Rocío’s story is also the story of the process of change that society is experiencing, achieving that, even unequally, spaces open up in the patriarchal wall.
He has no family history in the profession. When I went swimming, I always passed the Fire Department to the Maldonado Campus.
“It always caught my attention until one day I went to the Detachment to ask how I could enter. They answered me “there are no women”. Strict. I went home disappointed. Later, older, I found out that there was a possibility but they were Fire Officers, that is, it was another specialization. To do this I had to finish high school, take the National Police School and then see if I passed the tests because if that didn’t happen I wouldn’t get in. In other words, I would continue, if possible, as a Police Officer,” he maintains.
But Rocío was determined and had to pass the physical tests, which have no distinction for men and women. “It is another requirement of women because they are tests designed for men. But hey, you work at the same time, so I had to raise awareness, assert myself and show that I could.” The physical proof is, “rope passage, professional circuit, Cooper test, swimming, some maneuver they make you do, altitude test for vertigo. In other words, it’s all the same requirement.” the Officer says.
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The characteristics of Solymar
When they asked him to come to Solymar “I had to rethink some things, such as the daily commute to the workplace. After I left school I was living in Montevideo because I worked office hours. But when they asked me to come to Solymar, even though the distances were great because I live in the center of Montevideo, in Cordón, I didn’t think twice because it is a beautiful area to work. It’s like an achievement, I didn’t think about it too much because in some way being head of the Detachment is all we aspire to while we are studying,” he noted.
Asked what it meant to her to be the leader in a Detachment with 21 men in her charge, she said that “pride on the one hand because ultimately she represented the National Director of Firefighters. And in some way you are a representative figure of the place because you are part of the city, with many responsibilities in charge and also with 21 firefighters in charge, all men.” But she clarified that precisely the idea is to “work together because beyond being the boss, I need the will, work and commitment of them, of my colleagues.”
His arrival in Solymar, far from representing a surprise, was taken naturally.
“What happens is that Solymar has been a detachment that was carried out mostly by women. The first was Claudia Pérez, who was also the first female firefighter, so they are already used to it. Maybe what surprised them was that I was smaller and even of everyone here in the Detachment I am the smallest.”
She confesses that although the administrative task is destined for the Head of the Detachment, she likes to be in the fire. “But I think it is a process and we are aware that it is a stage; Then you have to continue advancing by specializing in something else. But personally I like the executive to be on site, working on the fire. But you have to manage the administrative tasks, which is very important in the Detachment and that is the boss’s job.”
When he arrived in Solymar he thought she was younger. “At first I thought that the jurisdiction covered by the Detachment was less because it goes from Av. Calcagno to passing the toll on the Tropa Vieja road and even passing the Arroyo Pando toll. It is a fairly large extension, we have the part of Route 101 up to km 26, Interbalnearia, Giannattasio, Route 34, that is, quite large, which makes it complex when it comes to acting, as we have a lot of responsibility.”
In the opinion of Rocio Benitez, there are many fires in the area, but he maintains that when the extension is large, support is always received ““either from the Carrasco, Pando or Parque del Plata detachment and if it is a large fire, support is received from the personnel of the closest Detachment if not from the Montevideo headquarters.”
And he clarifies that because it is an area where there are many private forests and since they are not properly cleaned, they become “very dangerous.”
Remember that when he took office last year“we had coordination with the CECOED and the Mayor and we did a survey at least to carry out a cleaning, or at least what can be done before to prevent a fire. But I repeat, there are lands that are private and cannot be entered. They have tried to encourage them, to tell them to clean, but they have had fines and yet they present a problem for society.”
Finally he says that to avoid the issue of fires “The recommendation is awareness and education, because sometimes we think that it is older people or children who cause these outbreaks, but it is an issue of education. I proposed holding talks between neighbors so that they know what to do when a fire outbreak occurs, because it happens that in the desire to help they can create a problem since they can get burned or poisoned.” accurate.
