THE record books show that 30 years ago today 25-year-old Mary Langdon made history by joining East Sussex Fire Brigade and becoming Britain's first female firefighter.

It should be added that that is only true for peacetime. Of the 98 women throughout the world known to have died in the line of fire service duty, 23 were Britons killed by enemy action during the Second World War.

So Britain has a long and honourable record stretching back 60 years rather than 30.

But that pales by comparison with the United States where the first known woman firefighter was African-American Molly Williams. She was a slave of a member of the Oceanus Engine Company No 11 in New York City when she made a name for herself in a blizzard in 1818.

With male firefighters scarce, Molly in her calico dress and checked apron took her place, helping to pull the pump through deep snow and earned the accolade of being "as good a fire laddie as many of the boys".

Today the US-organised International Conference of Fire Service Women reports there are women firefighters and rescue workers in the UK, Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Colombia, Panama, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ghana, Panama, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, and Brazil.

The organisation is 24 years old and holds international conferences every two years.

In the US, there are 6,200 women now working as full-time career firefighters. Several hundred hold the rank of lieutenant or captain, and about 150 are district chiefs, battalion chiefs, division chiefs, or assistant chiefs.

Accurate figures on volunteer firefighters are more difficult to obtain but it is estimated that brings in another 35,000 to 40,000 women.

To the UK at least goes the credit of the most significant numbers outside the US, with more than 200 full-time women firefighters and about 200 more serving as retained firefighters.

They represent about one half of one percent of full-time firefighters, and 1.5% of retained firefighters - proportionately four times less than in the US, where women have been chiefs of volunteer fire departments since at least the 1930s and there are always at least 150 female volunteer fire chiefs at any given time.

But at least there are signs that we are trying to do better under equality legislation.

In the spring of 1998 the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, went on record as saying the fire service's record was unacceptable and it was time to "stop making excuses and get its house in order".

By September 1999 the Fire Service Inspectorate had released a comprehensive report, assessing how fire brigades in England and Wales were meeting their responsibilities under the law.

In 2002 West Yorkshire Fire Service announced a target of raising the numbers of women firefighters from 14 to 232 within five years.

It had similar plans to increase the number of firefighters from the ethnic minorities.

The inspectorate had found overwhelming opposition to women firefighters with the over-riding view that women were neither strong enough nor fit enough to do the job.

On top of sexual harassment there were the problems of fire stations built to accommodate only one sex in sleeping, bathing, rest room and changing facilities and policies on hair and grooming geared especially for men.

There was even confusion over the concept of "fairness", with the argument fairness = equal = the same = identical, which taken at face value would have lead to absurdities like all having to tie knots right-handed or maternity policies being ruled out for women because men didn't have them.

WEST Yorkshire's record in employing women firefighters is one of the best in the country. Outside London only the West Midlands employs more working full time.

And the county's Chief Fire Officer Phil Toase, influential as the president of the Chief Fire Officers' Association, makes no bones of the fact that he wants to see more women in the front line of the service.

Having said that, the current figures of 28 full-time female firefighters in West Yorkshire, plus a further six in the retained ranks, indicates how far we are from attaining the 2002 target of 232 women firefighters by 2007.

Mr Toase says: "Women are currently under-represented in operational roles both locally and across the fire and rescue service and a significant reason is that many still see firefighting as a male preserve."

He adds: "We must re-double our efforts to show that firefighting is not simply a job reserved for men. It opens up great career opportunities for those women who are fit, active, confident and enjoy a challenge."

* "Real women drive fire engines" - sticker.

* Just before Mary Langdon signed on in Britain, Toni McIntosh was hired by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Fire Department. She was probably the first African-American woman to become a career firefighter.

* In 1993 Networking Women in the Fire Service (www.nwfs.net) was formed in the UK.

* The drive to get more women firefighters is now headed by women. The new Fire and Rescue Minister Angela Smith is the first woman to be appointed as minister responsible for fire and rescue.

And her new department is headed by Secretary of State, Ruth Kelly - who is also the Minister for Women in the Cabinet.