Girls on Fire Camp is a hot activity

Bloomfield Fire Chief Lou Venezia stands with some of the ‘Girls on Fire’ participants at this year’s camp on Aug. 13 and 14.

The Bloomfield Fire Department hosted its third annual Girls on Fire Camp on Aug. 13 and 14, at Fire Station No. 3, on E. Passaic Avenue. According to Fire Chief Lou Venezia, the department has added activities and enrollment has doubled from last year from about 25 to 50. The girls are local fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders and they have the time of their lives, the chief said.

There were about a dozen activities or stations presented, divided up for the two days. All were supervised.

“We’re also trying to show them they can do the activities in the fire academy, so the first activity for the day is a physical fitness station,” Venezia said. “It’s functional fitness training for personnel.”

The activities were a search and rescue “smoke station,” complete with furniture to maneuver around; a physical performance station where the girls toted small tools and equipment; stretching out a fire hose and then directing a stream of water toward a target; an extraction equipment exercise; positioning a ladder and climbing half-way up; a first-aid station; CPR and Heimlech maneuver demonstrations; a ride in a fire truck and a team-work
station.

“This is the marshmallow challenge,” Venezia said. “The girls build a free-standing, marshmallow structure.”

There was also a “trust walk,” where a blind-folded girl is directed, by her partner, to retrieve plastic cups. There was a survival crawl through a maze and an exhibition, by firefighters, of jumping from a window. And what summer camp would be complete without a three-legged race and tic-tac-toe?

At this camp, both activities were combined and pairs of girls squared off against each other.

Three years ago, the initial idea for the camp came from firefighters Claudia Astudillo, a three-year BFD veteran, and Stephanie Orgueira, a four-year BFD veteran. Both were on hand this year. Astudillo said the ideas for the stations were a result of brainstorming.

“It’s what the girls are interested in,” she said. “But I do get a lot of feedback from my daughter. We wanted to inspire girls at a young age and keep safety in mind.”

Orgueira said the activities would give the girls an age-appropriate idea of what a firefighter experiences at the academy.

Three of the girls spoke to this newspaper. All were Fairview Elementary School fifth-graders.

For Isabella Quinones, this was her second year at the camp. She had told her friends about it.

“What I liked was that everybody has a chance at everything and it’s really interesting,” she said. “But it’s important to remember that something like the CPR is something that could save a life.”

Isabella said her mother told her about the camp and it was on social media.

“There’s a lot of fun stuff,” said Emerson Simone, “and we’re learning a lot. It’s very important because there’s stuff you can use in real life, like the CPR.

Emerson said a number of her friends were at the camp. She had told her mother about it and her mother found the sign-up sheet.

Olivia Barrett liked that a lot of her friends from school were at the camp and there were many activities. But, as Isabella and Emerison also said, Olivia said she especially appreciated learning about CPR. She also liked that she was taught how to safely get in and out of a fire truck.