Fighting fire with passion
Maxine Jacobs
Thesewomen just want to be seen for what they are – firefighters.
Tackling any emergency situation, senior firefighter Belinda Cadzow, 43, and firefighter Corrie Needle, 23, say they’re just doing their bit for their community.
As two of six female firefighters at Palmerston North Fire Station, the pair reflected on their careers ahead of
International Women’s Day today.
Being from differing generations, Needle’s transition into her firefighting career has been smoother than Cadzow’s.
Eighteen years ago, then-bank manager Cadzow threw in her office life for the rush of emergency responding, entering Palmerston North Fire Station as one of two females. Overall her reception was positive, but she saw moments of doubt, concern and dismissiveness from a few colleagueswho said firefightingwas aman’s job.
They thought she wouldn’t be able to handle the horror of rescuing people from a car wreckage or keep up with the others as she carried a backbreaking apparatus into a fire.
Cadzow recalls an elderly man approaching her as she swept up glass
from a crash after she had finished cutting passengers from the vehicle.
‘‘He said to me, ‘I think it’s wonderful that they let females ride on the fire trucks, do you just do the clean-up and the sweeping after the car crashes?’
‘‘He wasn’t being derogative. He had never seen a female firefighter before, so he thought I was the clean-up crew.’’
She’s able to laugh about it now because for years she and other women have battled through the assumptions and have proved themselves, paving the way for more women to join the fire service.
Needle joined the station 15 months ago.
When she introduces herself as a firefighter, people are interested in the job rather than that she’s a woman.
She signed on to the job for the challenge. She never thought she couldn’t hack being a firefighter or that she wouldn’t be accepted. ‘‘I think it probably would have stopped me if my family weren’t so supportive, but they just wanted to see me succeed.’’ In the past 20 years, female firefighters have changed from an anomaly to normal, Cadzow says.