THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Fire Rescue welcomed six new recruits Saturday, and two of them stood out from the crowd.
Steph Drost and Ceilidh Boyd, the city’s first two female firefighters, were among the six new recruits sworn in during the New Recruit Graduation Ceremony at the Thunder Bay Fire Rescue Training Centre.
“It’s always been a dream of mine since I was young,” Drost said after the ceremony.
“I worked for the MNR doing forest fire for the past three years, and through that I met some people who have gone to Texas for training, so I went and did my training there, and I applied and here I am.”
The 23-year-old strongly believes in helping people, and the hands-on portion of the firefighter is one of her favourite aspects of the career along with the people she worked alongside.
“We’ve developed some pretty strong bonds through the past six months, so it’s going to be sad to not see them every day.”
The new recruits were required to complete a rigorous 22-week training program under the Training Division of Thunder Bay Fire Rescue.
“There were just little challenges here and there, but there hasn’t been anything major,” Drost said.
“We felt a lot of support from the Chief and all of the other firefighters we’ve met, so they’ve made it an easy transition for us.”
Drost added that the support was incredible.
“They let us know they are here for us, we can call them whenever we need guidance, and we all feel like we are prepared to start this career,” Drost said.
“We’ve all been training so hard for the past, some of us 20 years, 18 years, it’s a long time coming and we are really excited.”
Thunder Bay Fire Rescue Chief John Hay said this graduating class shone through from a large group of applicants.
“I think they are feeling pretty good about themselves, and I think they are feeling good about the effort they put it,” Hay said.
“It’s not just 22 weeks of training, its years of preparation that I’m sure all of them went through, and I think you recognize how competitive it is to get into our service.”
Hay is proud of every recruiting class that makes it through, they’ve had good success over the years in developing great firefighters, which has contributed to Thunder Bay having a great fire department.
“This is one of my favourite things about my job, seeing people come in that are committed, prepared and are going to be great firefighters for a long time.”
