The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has partnered with Fire and Rescue NSW, the NSW Rural Fire Service and AirServices Australia to encourage young women to pursue a career in firefighting.
NPWS hosted the Girls on Fire program last week (4 November) which aimed to inspire young women to take up jobs in firefighting and emergency services.
Fire Team Leader with NPWS, Leigh Nolan said it was important for girls to hear from, and see female firefighters in action and be exposed to opportunities within the emergency services.
Ms Nolan said the program introduced girls to remote firefighting operations.
“We will talk about how NPWS crews work to contain lightning strikes that occur in hard to access, remote locations in national parks,” Ms Nolan said.
“We’ll go through the planning and practical steps we take to access these fires, reduce their spread and minimise their impact on nearby communities,” she said.
“By talking to these girls about my own firefighting experiences I want to show them that it is a really rewarding job and hopefully inspire them to pursue a career firefighting in NPWS, a choice they might not have thought of.”
Ms Nolan said there were more than 1,000 trained NPWS firefighters across the State and around 25 per cent were female.
She said many NPWS female firefighters were highly trained members of the specialised Remote Area Firefighter Team.
