CAMP FIRE GIRLS

Let’s go to the mall. Let’s go swimming. Let’s have a sleepover. Let’s put on some heavy-duty fire gear, grab that hose the size of a boa constrictor and put out that car fire.

No, these were not your average teenage girls hanging out Thursday at the Eugene Fire & EMS Department headquarters on West Second Avenue.

“Amazing,” said Mickina Biagi, 15, a North Eugene High School student, after being tabbed as the lead firefighter on a hose crew putting out a fire that engulfed an old, rusted Volkswagen Rabbit. “It was really fun. And hot!”

Mickina, whose father, Capt. Tony Biagi, is a Eugene Fire & EMS employee, is one of 15 teenage girls participating this week in the first-ever Confidence and Leadership Camp for Young Women sponsored by the fire department.

The girls have handled those powerful hoses, rappeled on ropes, studied emergency response training and, finally, got to do the real thing Thursday — put out some red-hot flames.

“It was really cool,” said Eleanor Hammond, 17, who attends Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis, her voice muffled by the self-contained breathing apparatus she was wearing. Hammond had just helped put out a fire roaring through a stack of wood pellets stuffed with shredded newspapers.

“Wish it was bigger. But it was awesome,” she said, the smell of smoke thick and burnt newspaper pieces fluttering through the air.

The free camp, which began Monday and ends today with the girls getting certificates of completion at a closing ceremony, was the idea of Capt. Jean Woodrich, who was only the third woman firefighter in Eugene history when she joined the department in 1992.

Of the 250 or so firefighters employed today by Eugene Fire & EMS and Springfield Fire & Life Safety — two agencies that are in the process of merging — only 11 are women, Eugene fire spokeswoman Joann Eppli said. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but at 4.4 percent, it’s higher than the 3.7 percent national average reported in 2008 by the International Association of Women in Fire & Emergency Services.

Woodrich said camps like this one can only help increase those numbers. “We want young women to have a chance to try the profession in a nonthreatening environment,” said Woodrich, explaining why the camp is just for females.

Men can already identify with the idea of being firefighters, she explained. “Young women don’t have that so much, so this is a chance for them to try it and find out about it. If you’re athletic and adventurous, it’s a good fit.”

Woodrich said she’d heard about such camps for teenage girls and young women elsewhere in the country. Last summer, she attended a firefighters conference in Chicago to get some tips on establishing such a camp here in Eugene.

“It’s community outreaching, it’s youth outreaching, it helps build future leaders in the community,” Woodrich said. “It’s just so good on so many levels. I couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out.”

The camp, with real firefighters acting as counselors, not only introduces the girls to the profession of firefighting, it also teaches them about the importance of teamwork, Woodrich said. After all, it takes more than one firefighter to handle those powerful hoses.

“It definitely builds your confidence because you have to trust everyone around you,” Mickina Biagi said.

Woodrich hopes the camp becomes an annual event and that attendees in subsequent years will possibly go on actual calls with firefighters.

Most of the girls were rather meek when they showed up on Monday, Woodrich said. One by one, they were videotaped as they spoke about why they wanted to give it a try.

But after a couple of days of learning those hoses, operating those air tanks and climbing those ropes, Woodrich saw their confidence quickly rise.

“We asked them yesterday what they’ve learned, and the No. 1 thing they put down was, ‘I learned I can do anything,’ ” said Woodrich, whose daughter, Callista, a Douglas High School student in Winston, is participating in the camp.

“She’s never mentioned it before,” Woodrich said of her daughter following in her footsteps as a firefighter. “But I’m seeing she has some skills.”

Callista Woodrich plays softball at Douglas High. “She likes to swing a bat,” Capt. Woodrich said. “And now, a sledgehammer and an ax.”