Sixteen teenage girls graduated from the Eugene Springfield Fire Department’s 14th annual Young Women’s Fire Camp on June 27 after a week of hands-on training, learning teamwork, leadership skills, and building self-confidence.
The fire department hosts the free camp to encourage future generations of young women to break barriers in firefighting and emergency medical service careers. The day camp, which started on June 23 and ended with a graduation on June 27, recruits young women between the ages of 15 and 19 to fight fires, perform search and rescue operations, and learn what it takes to be a firefighter.
“I think seeing our program in action is really great,” said camp director Heidi Carson, an EMS captain and paramedic with the department. “It’s especially rewarding when the campers go on to have careers in the fire service but even if they don’t, at the end of camp, every one of them has gained the confidence in themselves and their abilities and gotten their hands on things they never thought they would have before.”…