Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Silvia Senna

JUNIOR GIRLS FIREFIGHTER BOOTHCAMP

Kamloops Fire Rescue holds boot camp to encourage young girls to join firefighting

May 9, 2024 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — For the second consecutive year, the Kamloops Fire Rescue (KFR) held a Junior Girls Firefighter boot camp, where 20 female students from Grades 10 to 12 in School District 73 had hands-on experience on activities related to the role and duties of a firefighter. The goal is to get more women to join the firefighting force.

Interior fire and search, car fire, auto extraction and rope rescue. The high school girls had the chance to try it all.

“It’s an incredible experience. You don’t think you could do something like that. You walk in a room, it’s just full of smoke and you’re just — I could see my hand, but the person who just moved two inches away from me is gone. There’s a couch beside me, and I didn’t know that,” shared Samantha Fiddick, a Grade 12 student who joined the experience.

“This is what they’re doing every day. Like, this is a lot of effort and that’s crazy,” said Grade 10 Kaia Bryant. “I thought the car fire was really cool because I’ve seen car fires on television and I’m like, ‘That’s what it is.’ It’s strange to put that into perspective.”

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While some of the girls were trying it for the first time, others already know they want to make it their careers.

“Firefighting is the one thing that really I’m passionate about. I love it. Just working with that kind of team where everyone kind of has their job, their position — and still everyone works together. Everyone knows what to do,” said Mara Jahnke, a Grade 11 exchange student from Germany who has been a junior firefighter for years. “The problem-solving part of it is really interesting. Sometimes you have to find solutions to problems that have never been solved before. I love that. And on top of that, you do a meaningful job and give back to the community.”

Out of the 129 firefighters in Kamloops, only two are women. With this program, KFR hopes to change that.

“We want to show these girls that this is a viable option as a career for women. We want to see our community services being more reflective of the community we serve. And of course, you know, we have a population that’s 50/50, so we’d like to have some more women on the department,” said Capt. Erin Holloway.

And if it was up to these students, other girls should give firefighting a shot.

“There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to do the same things. And it kind of makes you want to do it more because you have those people to prove wrong,” said Bryant.

“Take the shot. Go for it. You can do it, 100 per cent. There are girls before who’ve done it. Talk to girls, talk to female firefighters. It’s motivating just to have a conversation with them,” Jahnke advised.

The program currently runs once a year, but KFR hopes to expand it.

“The feedback has been extremely positive. I think this is going to be a yearly event and hopefully we’ll even expand it to maybe multiple days. We really want to give them a really good taste of what we do,” said Capt. Holloway. “I’ve heard that a couple of people we had go through this have actually joined volunteer departments, so it is working and they’re out there and they’re giving it a go.”

“Just go for it. Just try things. That’s one of the main reasons I was here — I just wanted to try something new,” added Fiddick.