Barrie Fire and Emergency Service training facilities were taken over recently by a new group of potential future firefighters.
The Saunders Road facility, where Barrie crews train to keep up their skills, became home to Camp Molly — which pays tribute to the first female firefighter on record in North America, Molly Williams — from Sept. 26 to 29.
Participants, who range in age from 15 to 18, had the opportunity to meet and engage with strong female role models as well as take part in a variety of different activities through hands-on learning experiences. This included fire suppression, auto extrication, fire prevention, communications, fire investigations, medical, forcible entry, media relations and firefighter safety throughout the free four-day program.
The local fire department currently has more than 190 employees across all of its departments, 44 of whom are female.
“I know the goal is to grow and diversify, because women have so much to give to the emergency services. Typically in the past, it’s been a very male-dominated profession," said Katie Foster, public educator with Barrie Fire. "This is also helping with that a little bit to hopefully show that this is actually a career option so that we can build up that community."
The job has extreme physical demands, said Foster, adding during the camp, leaders and participants talk a lot about keeping oneself in good physical shape in order to then also help maintain good mental health.
“You are a first-responder. You’re seeing a lot and encountering a lot. There are a lot of those side conversations that we have here which have been really nice,” she said.
Watching things “click into place” throughout the camp, she added, has been great to witness.
“You can see, as they put on their gear, so many things click. It’s exposing them to know … if after this you realize suppression isn’t what (they) want, there are other avenues. We want to enlighten them as to what they could do," Foster said.
Newmarket’s Ivy Coles was one of the 32 participants from across the province who attended the program. She said this was the second time she’s taken part in Camp Molly.
“My dad is a firefighter and ever since I was in (kindergarten) I have been very interested in it,” said Coles, adding she’s participated in Camp Molly in King City in the past and knew she wanted to be a part of it again. “That one was fantastic and I knew I wanted to do another one."
Coles said she found the physical part of the experience to be her favourite.
“The search and rescue is very fun, and climbing the ladder, using the ropes … and the fire investigation aspect of the program was also extremely interesting,” she said.
Springford resident Jaelyn Fleet, 18, is studying forensic chemistry at university and is considering a career in arson investigation.
“I think that would be really cool. I loved it,” she said of the part of the program that focused on fire investigation.
That said, Fleet added the search-and-rescue portion of the program was also “really cool.”
“We got the black-out masks and oxygen masks and everything — then we got to save a dummy. Breaking the doors was also really fun,” she said.
Natasha Carter is a Camp Molly board member, having jumped on board when the program came to her hometown of Belleville in 2022.
With two daughters, and a husband who is in the fire service, Carter said she immediately saw the value of the program and knew she wanted to be part of it.
“We just immediately embraced it as something we needed to get onboard with," Carter said.
The program launched in 2019 with one camp and has since grown to 10, including the camp in Barrie and another in northern Quebec.
"This was a big year for us. It was our first time leaving the province. We have seen a lot of growth this year and we are very happy that it seems to be catching on,” said Carter.
“This is definitely a field that is predominantly male … (but) I can say in my relatively short time with it that I can see the program working,” she added. “We have girls that come through as campers one year. They come back the next year as a platoon captain, and again the following year and they’ve enrolled in pre-service."
With a couple of years under its belt now, Carter said Camp Molly officials are now beginning to hear many stories of former campers who have been hired on with various volunteer departments.
“We see that it’s working. The numbers are climbing,” she said, adding the number of females in the fire service in Ontario is approximately four per cent. “We see in essays when they apply that they really want to do this as their career, but my dad says girls can’t be firefighters. So as long as that mentality is still alive and well, we still have a job to do.”