HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- At the Henrico Fire Department Training Facility off Woodman Road, free crews got an extra hand from nearly 60 young girls who they hope to one day possibly recruit to the force. It was all part of their two-day summer camp called Girls on Fire.
The camp is the creation of Ronny Martin, the Lieutenant of Recruit Training with Henrico Fire.
“I thought it was a great idea to introduce a young lady to the fire services because it's not very often that we’re told we can be firefighters,” Martin said.
Martin says she’s been dreaming of a local camp that could help inspire young girls to pursue a career in public safety for a few years now.
“I have been pitching a girls' camp for the past two years,” Ronny said. “I went to the ‘Women in Fire Conference’ a few years ago where I was first introduced to a camp like this.”
“I actually visited a couple of girls' camps. Last summer I went to one in Phoenix, Arizona and I checked out a couple of local ones,“ Ronny said.
This is the first year of the camp. Over the course of two days, the girls will experience multiple roles a firefighter plays throughout different stations.
“They are rotating through four stations right now where they’ll get a little bit of hazmat, they’re learning about a little bit of engine work, hand-lines, and inside we have a classroom going where they can learn how to tie knots,” Ronny said. “I didn't even think about being a firefighter until I was 30 years old, so had I seen something like this as a kid I would've jumped all over it."
One camper who fully immersed herself in the different stations was Zinn Scalin. Though she is thinking about other career opportunities outside of firefighting, you wouldn’t know based on her engagement during the hands-on activities.
"It felt like I was really out in the field, but then also if I like it was stressed out, I could just be like 'Oh, I'm right here!” Scalin laughed. “Even if you don't want to be a firefighter when you grow up it's amazing to see other women doing this sort of thing and people in general and it's cool to be like oh wow I could do this if I wanted, like this is amazing you know.”
Scalin’s favorite activity was the hazmat station where she and the other girls were tasked with tightening a series of pipes ignorer to stop a major leak.
“I was holding one side with a wrench, and I was tightening the other until the leak stopped,” Scalin said. "It's just amazing to learn about it but in a safe environment where I'm not like 'Oh no toxic chemicals!”
"I didn't even think about being a firefighter until I was 30 years old, so had I seen something like this as a kid I would've jumped all over it."
After only two days of advertising before the camp, Ronny says she was amazed that 58 out of the camp's 60-girl capacity showed up to take part. She says she hopes it is proof that there is a need for more camps like this to introduce young girls to more career opportunities.
"It means the world to me to see young ladies excited to come out and do firefighting,” Ronny said. “It's just exciting to see that hopefully in the next couple of years, maybe I'll be working with them or even just plan to seed in their brain that they could be a firefighter.”
"I just think this is a really amazing camp,” Scalin said. “We’ve done a lot of stuff; It’s just so fun!”
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