Grade 10 girls from SD22 participating in the Firefighter for a Day program (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

Firefighter For A Day

Local high schoolers get a chance to be firefighters

Apr 23, 2025 | 4:28 PM

Students from School District 22 got a chance to train to be a firefighter this week.

A group of 14 Grade 10 girls from local high schools participated in Vernon Fire Rescue Services’s (VFRS) Firefighter for a Day program Wednesday, April 23.

The girls, done up in firefighting equipment, got to ride in a fire engine, spray the hoses, go up the ladder truck, and use the jaws of life to get into a wrecked car as part of the program. They also learned about all the roles and responsibilities firefighters have outside of extinguishing blazes, as well as the education and training needed to be a professional firefighter.

A group of 11 Grade 10 boys from area high schools will do the same training Thursday, April 24.

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The program had run in past years and was previously offered just to female students.

Captain Allyson Reich, VFRS’s sole female fighter for many years and organizer of Firefighter for a Day, said it was originally intended to encourage girls to become firefighters, but has since expanded.

“It’s a lot more, I don’t want to say socially acceptable, but it’s easier for male students to identify with a male firefighter,” Reich told members of the media on Wednesday.

“It’s pretty rare for females to see female firefighters, so that’s kind of why we started it, but it doesn’t mean we still can’t get that message out to students. Male or female, it doesn’t matter.”

Reich, who plans to retire at the end of the month, hopes that the fire department keeps the program in place so it can continue to encourage young people to learn about the need of the service and possibly determine it a good career path.

VFRS has run this program for the past several years, and two past participants returned to the fire hall to tell the students how they have since pursued careers in firefighting. Reich said one of the young women was a volunteer firefighter in Coldstream, and the other was in the process of going into wildland firefighting.

“It’s so wonderful to know that there’s new firefighters that are just as passionate about it as I am,” Reich said.

“I know that our communities will be in good hands with them in this position, should they choose that for themselves.”

Two of the girls participating in the Firefighter for the Day program spoke to media Wednesday, saying they had to sign up, fill in a lot of paperwork, and then were selected to participate in the program. Kiara Haddow said she was previously interested in becoming a wildland firefighter, while Sophia Keyes said she had interest in any sort of emergency services career.

The girls are from Vernon Secondary School and both told media what they most enjoyed Wednesday.

“Definitely going up on the ladder, because we went way up there so that was pretty fun, but I think I might like spraying the hose a little more after this, so I guess we’ll see,” Haddow said.

“I’m personally really excited to drive around in the fire engine, because you get to try on the equipment and practice putting on the equipment like it’s an actual emergency, so I think that will be really interesting to see if that’s something I’m interested as well,” Keyes added.

Both agreed that the heavy equipment and heavy lifting was the most difficult part of the day, but Haddow and Keyes also said that was interesting because it gave them an idea of what it felt to actually be a firefighter.

Haddow encouraged others to participate in the program in the future, saying it was worthwhile to try out, and Keyes said it was inspiring that the female firefighters were leading this and setting an example for the next generation.