Fire mums ready for hard slog
With a growing number of female firefighters, the Helensburgh Rural Volunteer Fire Brigade has expanded the women’s locker room with an eye on the future. In 1993 when local mum Karen joined, there were no active firefighting female volunteers in...
With a growing number of female firefighters, the Helensburgh Rural Volunteer Fire Brigade has expanded the women’s locker room with an eye on the future.
In 1993 when local mum Karen joined, there were no active firefighting female volunteers in the Helensburgh Brigade. Now, almost 30 years later, she has nine active female colleagues who respond to their pagers and jump on the fire truck. Most do it for fun, community and friendship.
Here’s what Kathleen and Karen have to say about being mums and firefighters.
Karen Elward (pictured above on the May 2021 cover of 2508 District News)
I was 16 when I joined, but I wasn’t active. Back then, there were no female firefighters active. Women used to cater: they did food and stuff when there was an incident. That’s what I did initially too.
After the big fires in 1993-1994, the Senior Deputy Captain asked the guys in the brigade if they had a problem with a female joining the brigade. They said: “We don’t care as long as she can do what we can do.”
At first, it was pretty clear at times that some people preferred you not to be there as a female. You had no privacy to get changed back then, you just got changed with everyone else. I got stuck in a little corner with no lights to get dressed in. It was awkward. You were shoved to the side, being the only female. But, other than that, I never really felt awkward as such.
I’m one of four girls and I was the one that always would try and give something else a go. Joining the rural fire brigade is one the best things I’ve ever done. I have met some of the best people. My best friends are all in the brigade, that’s how we’ve become friends. You bond and become a family with the people that you meet because, at the end of the day, you are trusting each other with your lives. It’s someone you can rely on and they are always going to have your back. It’s just great bonding. Males and females: to me it doesn’t matter. To the younger ones I’m like an auntie or a mum to most of them. The rest of them are just your mates.
At the Helensburgh Brigade we always seem to have fun together. Like, for instance, during the hazard reduction yesterday [Saturday, 24 April]: you do the hard slog, but you have fun doing it. At 8am I was up at the station, home about 6.20pm. We worked hard all day, but it was a good day. We still had fun.
In summer when I know there are going to be days of particularly high fire danger, I prepare meals early in the morning, so that the dinner is cooked and in the fridge. This in case we do get a call-out and I’m out for a long period of time. That way, the kids and my husband can come home and there’s dinner done and things like that.
During the 2019/2020 fire season, when I went away on a short notice for five days, I had my sister cook meals for the kids and my husband.
[From] before the kids were born we had pagers in the house. It’s like we have a cuckoo’s clock. The kids don’t pay attention to the cuckoo calls on the cuckoo clock anymore. My husband hears it, but he just rolls over and goes back to sleep. It’s just a noise they have learnt to switch out.
There are a lot of women in the Illawarra. Darkes Forest, Albion Park, Dapto: they all have a lot of women. Women now are probably made to feel more welcomed than they ever were, because we have more female firefighters. No one has to feel insecure or anything about being here. They’ll sort of blend in, because they are not the only one. Whereas early on, when there were hardly any women … you probably feel a bit lonely, being the only female. I don’t have a problem getting out there and being the only girl on a crew anymore. That does not worry me in the least.
I think it’s great that more girls are interested and want to get out there and have a go. We have heard so many times: we’ll take you on our crew any day. They know we work. I think sometimes we work harder than the boys to make sure that they realise we can do this stuff.
Kathleen West
Kathleen has been with the brigade 11 years. She says:
I’ve always liked doing community service and have always done volunteer work for schools and other organisations. After seeing what Aaron, my son, was doing, I thought: ‘I’d like to do that for myself.’
My son joined when he was 16. I asked him if he would mind if I joined. He was fine with it. When I had the interview they were joking that Aaron, an officer by then, would be telling me what to do. That was absolutely fine by me: as with any officer, you follow directions. He sometimes says “Kathleen”, sometimes “Mum”.
It’s really nice, we are very lucky in our brigade, all the people in it are great. I’ve made some good friendships.
Rather than the brigade being all male dominated, when it is more mixed it brings another dimension.
Last bushfire season I went away on a strike team. Work gave me emergency leave. I’ve never had an issue with getting time off from work for fighting bushfires.
It’s really rewarding, you meet great people and we’re just very fortunate with the Helensburgh Brigade, it is such a good brigade. Most people respect each other. It’s hard to put into words sometimes, I think we have a good group of people up here.
