Las Vegas' First Female Bomb Squad Commander Living the Dream

Las Vegas’ Chief of Fire Investigations Jamie Sypniewicz was a fourth grader when she spotted a fire engine, inspiring her to tell her teacher that she wanted to be a firefighter when she grew up.

“And she said, ‘You can’t,’” Sypniewicz said.

Pressed for why, the educator said dismissively: “Because you’re a girl.”

Had Sypniewicz’s mother not told the young, crying girl that she could be whatever set her mind to, she likely would’ve become a nurse, conforming to her gender role, she said.

“After my teacher told me that, I saw a fire engine go by with a female on the back, and her hair was flying,” Sypniewicz recalled. “And I said, ‘I can do it.’ And so ever since then, I did everything I could to become a firefighter.”

Her path led her to Las Vegas three decades ago, and she’s been with the city’s Fire Department for a quarter-century.

She now leads the Las Vegas Bomb Squad, a dual-discipline unit that investigates fires and explosive incidents.

Sypniewicz is the city’s first female bomb squad commander in the team’s 50-year history, handling dozens of unexpected calls a year, 24/7.

“Thank God for my mom,” Sypniewicz said, “because I wouldn’t be here today without her.”

On July 7, the commander sat down with the Review-Journal and outlined her field of work from a city of Las Vegas training facility in the east valley. The unit has access to robots, X-ray scanning and a bomb-sniffing dog, Wilbur.

The only bomb unit in Southern Nevada responds to around 70 calls a year. It also conducts sweeps and monitors special events and visits from dignitaries, and provides training throughout the valley.

“I would say a good 60 to 70 percent of our calls, it’s either false or a hoax device where somebody has put different components in there to make it look like a bomb, but it isn’t,” she said.

This is an edited version of her interview.

What are the duties of the Las Vegas Bomb Squad?

On the fire investigation side, we run any suspicious fires in the city of Las Vegas, so anything that needs to be investigated, when the department can’t determine how the fire started, or they assume that arson may be involved.

When we do any type of suspicious package or bomb call out, it’s over four counties… We also cover special events. So for instance, anything at Allegiant Stadium, whether it’s a football game or a concert. We have five bomb techs that are staged at that location approximately five hours before the venue starts and then all the way through the end. And then we also do dignitary coverage. Whenever dignitaries comes into town, especially during election season, we’re extremely busy. We do explosive sweeps of all the routes and the venues where they’ll be visiting, and their hotels where they’re staying.

What was your career path in Las Vegas?

I was a firefighter for quite a few years, and then I became a paramedic and a hazmat technician and just moved myself up through the ranks.

And then I started testing to come into the unit. In order to come into the unit, you have to go to a police academy, because we carry weapons and have the authority to arrest. So I went through the police academy 10 years ago. Once you graduate from there, then you get promoted into the unit and you’re a fire investigator. And from there, you wait to get picked up to go to bomb school.

How is a bomb squad technician certified?

Bomb school is in Huntsville, Alabama, and it’s a six-week program. Once you go to bomb school, you come back and you become a lieutenant. We have our ranking system here in the unit as well.

You have to want this, because it took me 15 years to get in the unit, and I knew that I wanted to do it the moment I was in the fire service. I was 30 years old when I started in the department. I knew that I couldn’t kick in doors and put out fires in my 50’s, so I wanted to use more of my brain than my brawn, which is why I came over to investigations.

Bomb tech school was intense. It’s six weeks long. You’re living there for the entire duration. It was very difficult for me personally, because I was the only female there. I was actually the only female in the police academy as well.

It’s very taxing physically. So if you imagine putting on the bomb suit and all of the equipment that we have to carry, it adds at least 100 pounds to you. It was physically taxing. It was also academically taxing, because we’re taking tests every week. It’s grueling.

In the military, they do it six to eight months. They condensed it for us, and it’s literally like drinking from a fire hose.

Describe a suspicious package call.

When we leave here it can be anything. For example, in the Luxor bombing (in 2007), it was a coffee cup. Anything we respond to now, it’s up to the technical ability of the bomb maker. It can be anything. It can be a lamp.

You have to leave here ready for anything. And that’s difficult on the body, too. When we get the phone call, we go from sitting in here to spiked, super-high adrenaline, not knowing what we’re going into. It can be a backpack that was left and abandoned. Or that could be an IED that can kill hundreds of people.

We run a lot of bomb calls in the valley that the general public isn’t aware of, and rightfully so. We don’t want to get anybody worried about the city. We’re able to determine right away whether it’s an actual improvised explosive device or if it’s just componentry. A lot of these bomb makers have all of the componentry put together, but they don’t have it wired correctly. We run on a lot of improvised explosive devices that would not function. We basically take it apart, and now they’re just explosive materials and not an actual comprised IED.

What is the most interesting or intense call you’ve been on?

Recently, that would be the Cybertruck explosion in front of Trump Tower (on Jan. 1).

It was interesting because we weren’t sure what we had at the time, and we had never had an electric vehicle explosion because that’s new technology.

We had to take a different approach because we weren’t sure if the battery was emitting any type of chemicals. We weren’t sure if the battery was involved. We didn’t know if there were other people that were in the area, potentially other bombers. We didn’t know if it was detonated by remote. We were called right away and were there for 17 hours.

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