By Matt de Simone
Botetourt County Fire & EMS held their second annual, award-winning Girls’ Fire Camp last Saturday at Lord Botetourt High School in Daleville. Campers participated in various activities that included a crawl maze, tying knots for special rescue operations, a zip line demonstration, relay races, fire hose operations, and more.
Girls that are rising 6th-10th graders learned Stop the Bleed from Carilion Clinic Trauma Outreach that included lessons in suturing and a hands-on car extraction. Carilion’s Life-Guard landed a helicopter and taught the campers about flight medicine.
The department took to Facebook last weekend thanking all of the fire camp volunteers who helped teach campers that “girls can too.”
“We had 64 girls join us for our 2nd Annual Girls’ Fire Camp,” County Fire & EMS Retention Specialist Taylor Lunsford said in a recent email. “We believe this camp provides invaluable skills that builds confidence in the attendees, truly showing them that they can achieve any dream they have!”
“This year’s Girls’ Fire Camp once again proved to be a huge success,” said Fire & EMS Chief Jason Ferguson when recently asked about the camp. “The momentum behind this event is one of a kind, from staff and volunteers to parents and the girls themselves, this event is highly sought after and high energy. It has been a blessing to see the community’s energy surround this unique event. It will be interesting to see how the lessons learned and the opportunities created for the young ladies from these events evolve into the future. Helping plant the seed for future firefighters, paramedics, doctors, and nurses, but most importantly, safety conscientious citizens.
“I am humbled to get the opportunity to support and promote the efforts of our department in connecting with the community this way and applaud the efforts of everyone involved in making this such a huge success.”
Funding for this fire camp was provided by a FEMA SAFER grant with the International Association of Fire Chiefs Volunteer Workforce Solutions.
