Female firefighter camp aiming to bring more women into the field
By Shoshana Stahl
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FLORISSANT, Missouri (KMOV) — The Florissant Valley Fire Protection District held the Fire Up St. Louis female firefighter camp this weekend.
Firefighter and paramedic Kate Freshman said 30 women between the ages of 18 and 40 signed up.
“These women can take these experiences into their personal lives and use that as empowerment when they’re going through a tough time,” Freshman says. “No matter what they’re doing, hopefully, this can show them that they can accomplish anything.”
Freshman says participants learned to climb the ladder, cut open cars to rescue people, conduct a search and rescue in a home and cut into a roof.
“It just gives them a completely hands-on experience and gets to try the basic skills that we use each day and see if they like the career,” Freshman says.
Freshman says none of the participants have any experience, but they are considering roles as firefighters or paramedics in the future.
For participant Nisha King-French, this was something she wanted to prove she was capable of.
“I’m really doing it for all the women, but especially African American women, because there aren’t even that many of us here so I just wanna prove it to myself and everybody that this is something that everybody can do,” King-French says.
Becoming a firefighter is something King-French never considered.
With her business degree, King-French has been working in marketing and finance full-time.
However, King-French says now she’s considering becoming an EMT.
“Just take the chance because you just never know if you continue to do the same thing,” King-French says. “You only live once.”
Freshman says part of the focus is increasing the number of female firefighters across the Metro.
“Diversity is something that is much needed,” Freshman says. “With the residents calling us, it’s a time of crisis for them so with diversity it just gives the residents another person to look at and confide in or hopefully make them feel better.”
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