GREEN, Ohio — Female firefighters from different stations around Ohio took on the heat during specialized agility and fire training. The training goes through fire rollover and flash-overstimulation with the students.
Captain Keith Geiger from the City of Green Fire Department said they partnered with the nonprofit organization Female Firefighters Ohio, giving female firefighters training they may not be able to get anywhere else.
"The instructors can control the smoke levels, the heat levels and the fire levels. We burn in the chamber at the very front of it, and then by opening and closing some of the dampers were able to bring the heat and the smoke, and the flames back over the top of the students' head. Giving them the ability to be able to read smoke and tell when a significant event is going to happen," said Geiger.
Geiger said this training is essential because fires are growing more rapidly.
"Today's fires have started to grow significantly faster, that's due to a couple things; the construction of buildings has changed over the last 10 to 20 years, the contents of the buildings have changed significantly. Everything is made of hydrocarbons now, so they say that a couch that you have in your living room is equivalent to 10 gallons of gasoline," said Geiger.
Alexandria Brown is a firefighter paramedic for the City of Green; she said the training mirrors what could happen in the field.
"This matches pretty closely what a flashover would be, just the way the fire develops, and when you've seen it enough, you know, you can see when there's a lot of smoke, and fire starts to carry through that smoke," said Brown
She is also the founder of Female Firefighters Ohio; its mission is to make sure women firefighters know they're not alone and to mentor them as they work to advance their fire service careers.
"I was exposed from another female, so just creating this group and getting the word out there showing that we can do the job, that's the most important part," said Brown.
Brown said it is not often you see an entire group of women for training. Brown says currently, 3% of full-time firefighters are women.
"This is like us creating our sisterhood being a part of the brotherhood because we love working with our guys, a lot of us have learned from the guys, but to have a group come together and encourage each other. I think that's how we're going to get more candidates in the fire service, especially for women."
Brown said that female firefighters bring different points of view to the fire service, which is another reason why having female representation is important.
"We think differently, we move differently, we function differently, and we all do the same job, but we do it differently. That's something that we like to say; we just, we have different tactics."
Geiger said the trailers are available for training purposes free of charge from the State Fire Marshal's office to any fire department in the state of Ohio.
