THROUGH THE FIRE

At 15, she was sleeping rough on the streets. Today, she’s one of the UK’s leading firefighters. Meet Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, the new head of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service

- Angela Wintle

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, the new chief fire officer of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, doesn’t look like your average firefighter. In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s female, and, at 5ft 1in, quite petite at that. She’s also mixed race, which, again, doesn’t fit the traditional Fireman Sam profile. But that’s just the way she likes it because she has made it her mission to combat stereotypes in the service.

“If you ask people to imagine a firefighter, they picture some tall, dark, hunky calendar model, but the reality, I’m afraid – and I say this with love – is that I’ve seen more firefighters who look like Ed Balls than Tom Hardy,” she says, breaking into a laugh.

“Joking aside, it does have an impact because, selfishly, as a senior fire brigade leader, I want the best of the best.

“Being a firefighter is tough, and I need to be able to choose the best out there, not just the best of the best from those who might think about it because the stereotype appeals to them.”

Sabrina is only 36, but she’s already one of the most senior firefighters in the country. As a deputy assistant commissioner in the London Fire Service at the time of the Grenfell disaster, it fell to her to debrief crews as they came off duty the next morning, and deal with the aftermath. She also helped oversee the fire service’s response to the Westminster and Finsbury Park terror attacks.

Since then she has become something of a troubleshooter, drafted in to fight fires in the metaphorical sense. Her previous posting was as interim deputy chief fire officer at Surrey Fire and Rescue, and now she’s crossed the border into West Sussex – both troubled services that have received a drubbing in a recent internal inspection report.