the persons in fire and police work and
recruits are constantly being added to
the ranks but only those with certain
qualifications are accepted I never even
thought about it I'd never met any
female firefighters I didn't you know
see posters or media stories about them
no one ever said to a little tiny Lacey
like you want to be a firefighter when
you grow up you know it just never
considered it an option
when you see a woman my size who's 5
foot 2 and you know there's middle
schoolers that are bigger than I am you
might have a moment where you think is
she can she really do everything that a
firefighter needs to do you know II
would say I'm aware that I'm the only
woman on the crew I work in a fire
organization with about 20 people in our
small town and two of us girls on my
crew we have 24 and I am the only woman
with my department there's only two of
us just two ladies detective if I knew I
was gonna be burning the next day
there's a lot of prep and I would still
take the extra minute to take off any
fingernail polish because I didn't want
to be girly on the fireline I think on a
daily basis people think I'm the
secretary for our company women are not
firefighters I get it all the time you
know you can't be a firefighter you're a
girl at my station here in in Yosemite
there was a gentleman that came into the
office looking for the fire chief and he
asked me where the fire chief was nice
and all that it's me and he said well
they didn't tell me you were a woman
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I didn't really just stumbled in to fire
one of my best friends from high school
thought fire first summer and came back
and said I totally found on your dream
job you have to come with me next year
and so I followed him to a hand crew to
a fire crew the next summer and Here I
am that was eight years ago and I'm
still in it it's hard to feel like you
can ever get there cuz I don't see any
women like in the job that I want to
have so you get this this tape in the
back of your head even if it's really
quiet saying well you can't do this cuz
women don't do that job sometimes
there's a feeling that I have to be
twice as good to be considered as
competent as my male co-workers I don't
want to make a mistake in front of the
men because I don't want that to reflect
badly on all women which can get in the
way of learning and trying new things
but in this environment at the W tracks
we make a really conscious effort to
make this a safe learning environment
it's really great to get that the
different leadership style the different
learning style from someone that you can
relate to a little bit more radio you
need to be able to actually paint that
clear picture
now we're having those conversations
about how do we create the support
network how do we create a more
inclusive culture so that we can create
some really impactful changes in the
future I would never have the chance to
meet this many female firefighters if I
just went through my fire career on a
normal trajectory this is something we
all need to to not get burned out Hey no
pun intended
last piece before we split have your
group back here loading up getting ready
to roll have fun today we do a job that
is inherently risky we go into areas
that most people will really wouldn't
want to get near and we do it because we
care about the land and we care about
protecting communities like look at
these women we've got women on hotshot
crews they work 16-hour days they don't
take lunch you know they eat on the go
they're carrying chainsaws and five
gallons of water at a time we've got
women here that work on engines we've
got foresters who are out all day taking
inventories women from helitack crews
we've got women in leadership you want
to talk about some logistics and some
planning and and making the really
important decisions these women are our
rock stars
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the best place to start is at morning
lineup every day ask yourself what is
the numerical strength of my company how
many men do I have it calls for young
men with good health mental alertness
and a willingness to risk personal
injury even better in protecting the
lives and property of others I think we
place a lot of limits on our on our
little kids and we kind of shove them
down one path or the other based on
nothing else but these stories we've
created in our culture I want as many
little girls as possible to see me in
this outfit as I can possibly manage
I hope young girls there's someone out
there that says I want her job when I
grow up I want to get in that front seat
of that big ladder truck and I want to
be driving it so that every little girl
oh boy that sees me driving sees that
there's a woman in that seat doing that
job that's my goal for young girls
coming up is that they see role models
and they say well if she can do it I can
do it they can do anything in the world
that they want and that is not just
firefighting any career gonna break that
chain um I want little kids to know that
there are so many more options when they
grow up and it doesn't matter where you
come from or who you are that you can go
find something that makes you happy
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you