Cape’s crack female firefighting crew
Courage, loyalty and and hard work – those are the qualities that make South Africa’s only all-female firefighting unit a force to be reckoned with
THINK of firefighters and an image instantly comes to mind of brave men risking life and limb to put out billowing infernos. But a fearless band of women recently emerged from the smoke of Cape Town’s terrifying mountain wildfire to well and truly shatter this stereotype.
The Juliet Crew are South Africa’s only all-female firefighting team. For three days the 10 women worked tirelessly alongside their 170 male counterparts on the slopes of Table Mountain as the horrendous blaze brought the Mother City to its knees.
They’ve been overwhelmed by all the love and support they’ve received from South Africans, two members of the crew, Tarren January from Bonteheuwel and Yanga Yoywana from Khayelitsha, tell YOU.
“We’re popular on social media now. Everyone wants to speak to the Juliet Crew and we’re getting so much support,” Yanga (27) says.
As they speak to us, their bodies are still sore and they’re reeling from what they went through fighting on the frontline against the devastating blaze that rapidly spread across Table Mountain.
They’d never experienced anything quite like it.
To people looking at the pictures on social media it seemed like Armageddon. And yet when the members of Juliet Crew got the call to join the firefighting efforts they didn’t hesitate.
“The moment I saw the blaze, I had an adrenaline rush because I knew I was going to do something good,” Tarren (27) says.
TARREN and Yanga both knew they’d found their calling when they joined the group. It was established in 2019 as the All-Woman Wildland Firefighting Project by sustainability consultancy firm NCC Environmental Services in partnership with the Chrysalis Academy, a youth-development initiative.
The project aims to address the underrepresentation of women in this sector while simultaneously providing life-changing opportunities to vulnerable young people.
The 10 superwomen come from disadvantaged backgrounds – more than 90% being part of female-headed households in Philippi, Retreat, Mfuleni, Khayelitsha, Capricorn Park, Macassar, Lavender Hill and Bonteheuwel in Cape Town.
Tarren joined in 2019 after doing a firefighting course for underprivileged youth at the Chrysalis Academy.
“I like nature and I like being in the outdoors,” she says. “So being a firefighter is more than an experience for me; it’s what I’m passionate about.”
Yanga, who is originally from the Eastern Cape, joined Juliet Crew after completing her training at an academy in Mbombela ( formerly Nelspruit).
“I knew nothing about firefighting but I was unemployed and an opportunity to join a firefighting programme arose.
“I started to love firefighting because we’re protecting animals and nature,” she says.
When the two women joined the group, temporarily based at Vergelegen Wine Estate in Somerset West, it had no official name but a quick brainstorming session resolved the issue.
“We came up with the name Juliet,” Tarren explains. “There’s no specific meaning behind it, but we all liked it because it’s very ladylike.”
Having spent months training together, they’re closer than ever.
“We are a very tight crew,” Tarren says. “We stay together, we sing together,
we shower together, we do everything together.
“We’ve learnt to love each other, to be there for one another and to grow together. We have a sisterhood.”
And it’s this bond that has given them courage and strength when they’ve needed it the most.
The Noordhoek wetlands fire, which was started by an arsonist last year, was particularly tough for both women. For Tarren, it was the first official fire she’d fought and one she’ll never forget.
“The minute I saw flames, I was like, ‘I can’t do this’. I just sat down for a minute, took a breather then told myself, ‘No, Tarren, you can do this, and you will do it’.
“I stood up and fought the fire alongside my team. My biggest fear was the flames, but the NCC would never put us in a situation they think would be dangerous for us. “It was a learning experience,” she says. But the latest Cape Town fire was in a league of its own.
The crew, who train together daily, deal mainly with fires in Somerset West and surrounding areas, so the terrain of Table Mountain was totally unfamiliar to them.
“It was a challenge,” Yanga says. “The smoke was thick and we had to hike up. It was a long hike. We didn’t know the route so we just had to guess.”
But that wasn’t the only challenge they faced – there was the constant risk that trees or loose rocks would fall on them, Yanga says.
It was hard to breathe in the thick smoke, which also affected visibility, Tarren adds.
These are the conditions they had to work in day and night.
They fought the fire from the Sunday, right through the night and into Monday morning.
In the afternoon they returned to base for a well-deserved rest then were back to the frontline on Tuesday morning.
For Tarren, the first night of the fire was the worst because they were on the mountain the whole night and, despite the flames, it was very cold.
Finally, after three days, the crew managed to put out the blaze in the area for which they were responsible.
“We knew what we did, and we did a good job,” Tarren says.
“The minute they told us our line was secured they told us we could be very proud of ourselves for what we did.”
FOR their families it was a huge relief to know that they were safe.
“With this fire, they messaged me every second to ask if I was okay because they were watching the fire [on TV] and they were very concerned,” Tarren says.
Yanga says her mom, who lives in the Eastern Cape, was beside herself after hearing that two firefighters had been hurt.
“She couldn’t sleep and was stressed because she couldn’t get hold of me. She thought I was one of the injured firefighters.”
Yanga hopes to be able to visit her mom and 19-month-old son soon.
“I’m going to fly back to visit him as soon as I get the chance to,” she says.
When she’s not fighting fires, Tarren likes to spend time with her boyfriend, just chilling and watching movies. She says when she’s working she spends most of her time at the base with her team and goes home only on weekends.
The Juliet Crew recently launched an appeal on fundraising site BackaBuddy in the hope that South Africans will help them finance the new base they want to set up in Cape Town.
“We are here in Somerset West temporarily,” Tarren says.
And now with the heroic effort they put in on Table Mountain the women hope they’ve shown they’re just as capable as men when fighting fires.
“We have proven ourselves,” Tarren says. “I know there are some people saying, ‘I don’t think these women can do this’, but we’ve proved them wrong.”