Katelyn Bettger is a straight-A student heading into Grade 12 at Heritage Woods Secondary who also likes dance.
So when she informed her father, Brent, she’d applied to participate in Camp Ignite, an annual summer training camp that introduces young women to a potential career as a firefighter, he said he was surprised and proud.
“I think she’s stepping out of her comfort zone," he told the Tri-City News.
This weekend, Bettger joins several of her peers from across Metro Vancouver — most of them high school seniors — for two days of intensive hands-on firefighter experiences like hoisting ladders, pulling hoses, rappelling from high platforms and entering smokey buildings.
It’s going to be intense, Bettger admitted.
After hearing stories from a firefighter family friend and a police-officer cousin, she thinks it’s a career option worth exploring but adds she’s keeping her expectations in check.
“Emotionally, it’s challenging because you can’t save everyone,” Bettger said. “But that also makes it more rewarding.”
Now in its 11th year, Camp Ignite is getting the young women back into the fire, so to speak, after last year’s gathering had to be conducted mostly virtually because of COVID-19 public health restrictions.
Bettger said she’s looking forward to meeting the other recruits in person after they’ve been getting to know each other through an online chat app.
Port Moody fire chief Darcey O’Riordan, whose department is sponsoring Bettger’s participation in the camp, said even if the students don’t end up choosing firefighting as a career path, the challenge of the weekend’s events and the people they encounter will stay with them.
“That’s where their learning comes from,” he said.
