Even though she is the first woman in Greater Sudbury to hold a leadership position within the fire service, Tamara Roitman does not consider herself a pioneer. She says she is simply following in the footsteps of other strong and capable women.
Originally from Toronto, Roitman “didn’t see fire as an option growing up. I’m female, raised in a very conservative household, and it just wasn’t an option.”
But she was fascinated by the dead.
In high school, she admits she “fell in love with biology, and figured ‘I’m going to go into biology, I’m going to do something there.’ And so did sciences all through high school. I fell in love with mummies, actually.”
She earned a bachelor of science in biology and biological anthropology — the study of mummified human remains — from the University of Toronto.
“So then I started thinking, well, I want to do something more applicable to actually helping people,” she says.
She went on to pursue graduate studies in the UK, in forensic and biological anthropology.
Roitman says following their studies, many of her classmates joined teams who were uncovering mass burial sites as part of genocide investigations.
“Older me thinks that would have been really cool and I would have really contributed to society, but at the time, I didn’t want to do that,” she says. “I just wanted to come back (to Canada).”
Over time, Roitman discovered she wanted to help the living, not investigate those who are already gone.
“I knew I wanted to do something to contribute to society; however, it wasn’t going to be forensic anthropology. I was sort of closing the door on that part of my life,” she says.
While at the University of Toronto, Roitman had worked part-time for a physiotherapist. When she returned to Canada from England, she went back to her old job and while treating one of her patients, she began talking with his wife, a Toronto firefighter.
“She would have been one of the older generation. We talk about females in firefighting and it’s relatively new, but some generations came before me and knocked down those barriers,” Roitman says. “She was one of the OGs.”
Three years to get hired
The OG encouraged Roitman to look into firefighting.
“I was really into fitness and working out, and I wanted to help people, and she’s like, ‘why don’t you look at firefighting?’ And I was like, what? No,” she recalls.
Roitman’s instincts told her no, but over the course of numerous conversations, she says the idea took root.
“I started to look into it and I started to think about it, and then do my research and I ended up talking to Toronto fire,” she says.
It was not an easy road. Roitman had to have corrective vision surgery to meet Toronto’s hiring standards, and she had to go back to college, despite her extensive post-secondary education.
Roitman’s story is one of perseverance. After college, she applied to several fire services — several times — and she waited about three years for the golden phone call.
“It took me three years to get hired after I finished college,” she says. “I had been applying to departments and there’s a lot of steps. I was getting caught at the interview — I was having trouble with the interview. I kept failing the interview, so I was getting frustrated. I was getting upset — it’s tough to apply and get rejected, and apply and get rejected.”
In the interim, she took a job with Toronto Paramedic Services as a dispatcher.
She only spent a few months working for 911 before the fire service in Vaughn hired her — a year-and-a-half after she had written their exams (she had been waitlisted).
Dissatisfied with a single master’s degree and wanting to keep her options open, Roitman — described by some in the Greater Sudbury fire service as a rockstar — earned a second graduate degree in public administration, this time from the Royal Military College. She says it took her five years to complete the program — she studied here and there during quiet times, while she was a frontline firefighter.
Roitman says she knew early in her firefighting career that she wanted a seat at the table. She knew she wanted “to be in a position one day where I can actually implement some of these changes, or make that change or have that impact.”
Roitman spent nearly 14 years working for Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service — on the truck, doing special projects and finally, as the acting training officer.
In December 2022, she was recruited by the Central York Fire Service as their training officer. She spent about three-and-a-half years with Central York before taking the big leap north to Greater Sudbury.
“I knew I wanted to be a training officer for a certain amount of time, but I also knew I wanted a position where I had a bigger seat at the table, to actually effect fire department change,” she says.
‘I like solving issues’
That desire to nurture transformational change led her north. In April 2026, Roitman joined the Greater Sudbury Fire Service. She says it was an easy decision.
“My introduction to the fire service here was seeing photographs of some of our firefighters responding to calls on snowmobiles. The level of dedication I see in that is just amazing,” she says. “We have some incredible people that will do anything and solve any problem to serve the citizens of Greater Sudbury. That’s pretty cool, and that’s really heartening. I see the heart in this department.”
Roitman says she likes the challenge of a big project and a tricky problem.
“I like solving issues. I like making things better, as opposed to just running status quo,” she says.
One of Roitman’s focal points is mental health. She has previously served on the board of directors with Badge of Life Canada, a non-profit that works with first responders experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder and other operational stress injuries, and she served on the peer support team with the Central York fire service.
Sometimes, the symptoms of PTSD are hidden in personality changes. As Roitman notes, cultural change takes time, and it is still difficult for many first responders to discuss their experiences.
“We used to joke that after 25 years, firefighters go crazy — they lose their minds, and it’s a big joke. But if you actually look at it, you’re starting to see the effects of all the calls, especially with older generations.
“You would start to see officers or veteran firefighters be more short-tempered and isolate,” she says. “So the isolation, the personality changes, the short-temperedness, the yelling — I’ve seen individuals yell at people at calls or be short-tempered with them.”
Roitman says addiction is also an issue for firefighters experiencing mental health concerns.
“I’ve seen so many older firefighters start to have the telltale signs of the broken blood vessels on the nose,” she says. “We switched to a 24-hour shift, and then the captain’s like, ‘I don’t want them driving. I’m not sure if they’re fit for duty,’ but it was always pushed under the rug sort of thing. But that’s a that’s a sign, you know — their alcoholism is a sign.”
Operational stress injuries can be fatal. The local fire service lost a firefighter in May 2022, when 40-year-old Mike Frost took his own life. He served with the Greater Sudbury Fire Service for 11 years. Roitman said she also knows firefighters in Central York and Vaughn who committed suicide. She takes mental health very seriously.
Wellness programs a focus
In Greater Sudbury, Roitman wants to strengthen existing wellness programs. She says so far, she is impressed; however, there is always room for improvement, which includes more training for firefighters and peer support workers.
“We do have a wellness committee here, and we do have peer support. What I’d like to see is more of a policy,” she says. “We have to get to a point where firefighters are more comfortable reaching out, because there is still that stigma. We’re getting better, but it does still exist. Also, have others recognize when people are showing signs and symptoms.”
Roitman also wants to work more with the families of firefighters. She says it is relatively easy for the individual to get treatment and therapy, but families are often overlooked.
“During that time, the family of that first responder is still getting through their day without their mom or dad there, right? The other spouse is dealing with child care and pick-up and dropping them off at activities, and nobody is really supporting them or providing resources for them, or giving them an outlet to talk,” she comments. “Recognizing that it’s an entire family that’s impacted, and providing resources to the family.”
Roitman said there is also an opportunity to educate firefighters on what to look for in their peers.
She wants to take a “fulsome approach” and address mental health “as a systemic issue, coming at it from every angle and hoping the full program will help move things forward.”
Women are still under-represented in the fire service. In Greater Sudbury, which employs more than 350 volunteer and career firefighters, there are only nine full-time female firefighters and 25 volunteers. But still, Roitman defers to the women who preceded her.
“There are so many women that have come before me and inspire me,” she says, adding she is also inspired by the women she sees on Greater Sudbury fire trucks.
Society has not yet reached parity in the fire service, but Roitman says that day is getting closer.
“I know I was hired for my qualifications and my experience. I know that, and I have felt like everybody here knows that,” she says. “And that’s where I feel like we’re starting to reach equality. Now it’s just about being the right person for the job, and that’s it.
“I’m so thankful to those women who have broken the barriers. It’s always going to be incremental. Are we at equality? No, but it does feel like there are so many to point to and so many that have mentored me. I’ve had female chiefs before me that I can look to who have inspired me. I’m really lucky in that I’m of that generation where I can look to them; whereas they didn’t have anybody to look to before them.”