Never before in the 133 years of the Pasadena Fire Department in California did it have an all-female firefighting crew on duty, but that was until last Tuesday, June 23.
For the first time ever, the entire engine crew in charge of Station 34 is made up of women, another moment that made the City of Pasadena beam with joy and pride. The city’s Facebook page immediately posted about the historic event.
Capt. Tricia Rodriguez was in command for the first ever all-female engine crew.
They were a group of four women including herself, Engineer Christina Terrazas and two other female firefighters. It so happened that all of them were on overtime for a single 24-hour shift, thus creating history out of a mere coincidence.
The captain is just so glad to be a part of such a milestone.
“I have a year left on the job, and I’m like, ‘before I leave I’m gonna make sure I have an all female crew,’ and it just happened today,” Capt. Rodriguez shared.
She probably did not think that her vision of seeing a full team of females on duty will come to reality, but it did and she knew it meant something worth sharing.
“The message to anyone is, if you have a dream or a vision, you can achieve it,” Capt. Rodriguez said. “This is something we have looked forward to growing up and we put a lot of effort into it. We trained, and we studied and we took the same test everybody else did and we didn’t give up.”
Working with the guys is fine and something that also comes with a job where females are rare, but the fact that everyone on duty is a female made the shift even more fun and remarkable.
Engineer Terrazas thought that this should have happened a long time ago.
“The guys get to experience that every day, and as much as we enjoy working with them, and they love working with us, it’s really nice to enjoy this experience today,” Engineer Terrazas shared in an interview with KCBS-TV.
Pasadena currently has 150 firefighters in the staff list and only 8 are women. The 5% female percentage in the fire department is actually above the national average of only 4%.
The fire department is also looking to inspire more female officers thru conducting a firefighting camp aimed to teach girls about the job and eventually inspire them to be recruited.
“We actually have females that have been promoted within the department enough to fill the seats so that we could put a complement of all female firefighters on an engine company,” Terrazas shared further.
This milestone is undeniably a moment that brings pride to all women out there, especially women who are in the field of public service. A heart that’s ready to serve knows no gender after all, and what matters at the end of the day is the sense of duty and the genuine passion to serve the people wholeheartedly.
People online were definitely inspired and happy about this historic moment. The comments and praises only showed how proud they are for the all-female team.
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