Young women and women firefighters from across California will be coming together for the first ever Women’s Empowerment Camp hosted by Modesto Fire in collaboration with Modesto Junior College on Oct. 5. The camp is a one-day experience catering to young women of the region who want to challenge themselves and learn more about a career as a firefighter.
The camp will provide participants with the opportunity to experience the duties of a firefighter and to see professional women firefighters in action. The day will start with breakfast and a team building activity and then participants will split off into rotations where they will learn skills like using a fire hose, forcing open doors, using a chainsaw, and ventilating from a roof. During lunch the professional firefighters will demonstrate putting out a live car fire, and after there will be more rotations for the participants.
The camp is run almost entirely by professional women firefighters, and women from all over the state will be traveling to be the instructors.
“It takes an army of other fire departments to be able to encourage the women that come that day,” Mullis said.
The camp also provides women professional firefighters from different organizations the opportunity to meet one another.
“It is a really exhilarating time to see women teaming together to encourage the next generation.”
The Women’s Empowerment Camp will not be the first of its kind in California, but it is the first to offer such an opportunity to the young women of the Modesto region. Mullis has been able to attend a number of similar camps throughout California and when talking about the impact she has seen them have on participants said, “by the end of the day their whole confidence was different, just because they were able to do something that they never thought they were able to do.”
Mullis attended her first Firefighting Women’s Empowerment Camp six years ago in Sacramento.
“I had been in the fire service about 10 years,” Mullis said, “and I had never been around that many women that were professional firefighters.”
She had gone into the experience with the hope of encouraging the next generation of women but found herself being the one that was “encouraged and inspired.” To Mullis, the camps are a unique opportunity for young women to push their own boundaries and do things they might never have thought themselves capable of.
As an example of the impact these camps can have Mullis told a story from a camp in Fresno which she attended with a co-worker’s daughter who had a fear of heights. One of the skills they learned was rappelling down a building and the young woman was terrified.
“I got to climb up on that ladder with her and walk her through what it was.” Mullis said. “It was a transforming experience.”
The young woman successfully repelled down the building and the moment she hit the ground said, “I want to do it again!”
“She did it,” Mullis said with pride when recounting the story, “and whether she pursues a career in firefighting or not, that day she did something she thought she could never do.”
The Women’s Empowerment Camp will take place on Oct. 5 at the MJC Regional Fire Training Center and participants must be between 14 to 21 years of age. Applications will be open from 8 a.m. Aug. 19 to Sept. 20. Breakfast and lunch are provided. For more information, visit: www.modestogov.com/3122/Womens-Empowerment-Camp-2024
