Juggling kids and callouts
Feilding volunteer firefighter Paula Phillipson has found a unique way to balance emergency callouts with her day job teaching children.
She is lucky to have a job where arrangements are in place so she can drop everything to respond with her brigade to anything from a motor vehicle accident, a house fire or a false alarm.
The All About Kidz preschoolers she works with love to talk with her about the callouts and she gets involved with their re-enactments, and teaches them fire safety.
When the crew return from a job they do a lap past Phillipson’s work and the kids wave.
Phillipson has been an active firefighter for five years.
Her story was discovered by UCOL Bachelor of Applied Visual Imaging student Emily Smith, who set out to document volunteers.
‘‘She’s very inspiring. The kids all look up to her, especially when she puts her gear on, they are like ‘wow’.’’
The time Phillipson contributes impressed Smith, as did seeing a woman carve her own niche in a tough male-dominated role, so she returned to complete a separate photo essay.
Phillipson said teaching the children about fire safety came about naturally.
‘‘When I come back from calls they want to know, did I put the fire out?
‘‘As soon as I walk through the door it’s 100 questions.
‘‘I’ve got one little girl here who’s told me she wants to be a firefighter when she gets older.’’
Phillipson says being a woman and an operational firefighter works well.
‘‘You need to have that upper body strength, so I go to the gym.
‘‘You’re always in a crew, so there’s always strengths and weaknesses of different people and you all look after one another.
‘‘There have been a few car accidents where there’s women or children involved, so having a woman there is good.’’