Duluth Fire Department Names its First Female Deputy Chief

Marnie Grondahl is named deputy chief of the life safety division.

DULUTH, Minn.- The city of Duluth made history this week by naming its first ever female deputy fire chief.

Marnie Grondahl has been with the Duluth fire department for 32 years.

After 8 years as fire marshal, she’s been appointed as the next deputy chief of the life safety and administration.

Grondahl is one of 15 women out of the 148 personnel in the fire department.

She says when she started in the late 1980’s, there were only three women working there.

One of her goals in the position is reaching out to young women in hopes of recruiting more female firefighters.

“It’s definitely growing and hopefully by going out and doing community work with kids and things like that, we’ll be able to show girls that this opportunity exists and pretty much you can do whatever you put your mind to,” Grondahl said.

Grondahl has been the interim chief for the fire prevention life safety division since February when the deputy position changed from one role, previously held by fire chief Shawn Krizaj, to two.

“It really provides us an opportunity to look at how we run life safety, how the office can be more efficient. We’re trying to be a little more customer service friendly and Marnie’s been a real integral part of that,” Krizaj said.

Grondahl has already been working on starting new projects within the department like making service requests more accessible to people online.

Under Grondahl, the fire department is also working with Duluth to hire the city’s own plan inspector for fire protection systems.

That position was previously held only by a state official, which made it difficult to utilize in Duluth in a timely manner.

The city’s plan inspector should start come January.