Firefighting is not for the faint of heart

Maggie St. Laurent has a steady career plan and she’s only in Grade 11. Maggie just completed a co-op course by spending one day a week at the Wolfville Fire Hall.

The 16-year-old spent a workday this past term, or a total of 80 hours, to learn what firefighting is all about in the junior program.

“I loved it, it felt like a part-time job.” – she said.

Maggie started out by showing how keen she is as she’s not even a local high school student. Her family lives on Brow Mountain. Her mother, Carol, drove the West Kings pupil while her daughter learned that she’s even more convinced that becoming a firefighter is her goal.

“It was a great real-world experience, I got to soak up all the knowledge.”

That’s what the co-op program is all about – learning the realities of the working world and gaining the confidence to pursue post-secondary pathways.

Maggie was mentored by long-time Wolfville firefighter Kathy Babcooke, who is a recently retired Grade 6 teacher. She said hands-on learning connects students to firefighting basics, like keeping equipment ready to use.

 

HELPING OTHERS

Babcooke said she was inspired by her father, who was an RCMP officer, while Maggie’s dad, Darcy, is a search and rescue technician in the military.

Firefighters often view their peers as extended family. They all aim to help others. That’s been the intent since the department was formed in 1890.

According to Babcooke, she’s observed that there have been more women going into firefighting during the last 30 years.

Both genders, of course, are continually required to update their technical knowledge.

I had a tour of the latest equipment used by the 42-member Wolfville department. It’s not just red fire trucks and ladders and hoses anymore. The volunteers confront more motor vehicle crashes than fires these days. They must know how to employ giant can openers that break into what might be death traps. Impressive equipment. It’s no wonder fundraising is a constant.

Maggie should be well prepared when the time comes to hop on a truck. She’s a boxer who loves her sport, practicing in Coldbrook three times a week. I’ll be watching to see how she does in a fight scheduled for New Glasgow in February. Strength, mentally and physically, is important to her and that’s a good thing as firefighters must run toward blazes that others are fleeing.

 

MORE WOMEN NEEDED

According to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, in 2020 only 5.5 per cent of Canadian firefighters were women. That number used to be a lot smaller. But it’s only been 50 years since the RCMP allowed women to join the police service.

Across Canada, female firefighters are recruiting other women to join their ranks. Last year, the CBC talked to Prince Edward Island native Karen Morrison about her 25-year firefighting career in Windsor, Ont. When she started in 1982, the department didn’t have equipment that would fit her.

Until then, no woman had ever been a professional firefighter anywhere in Canada. Morrison’s fire chief had to take her to Detroit to search for firefighting gear from a department there.

Morrison recalled that after she joined the ranks of the professionals in 1983, it took another 10 years of working as a firefighter before any other women joined her department.

Heather Horne, who is deputy chief instructor with the P.E.I. Firefighters School, told CBC, “there’s still not nearly as many women as we’d like to have; the numbers still need to go up. There’s a role out there for everyone – and everyone can do this. It’s not something that’s so intimidating.”

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, women firefighters can be called firewomen, but I don’t hear that term bandied about. The single label firefighters works fine.

The latest national census indicates that about 70 per cent of firefighters are volunteers. Roughly 11 per cent, or 14,000, are women, but there are thousands of vacant positions needing to be filled by either gender.

So Maggie St. Laurent is well positioned to become one of the career firefighters in this country. A future she can now say she’s ready to go for.