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<a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/mum-s-a-firefighter-the-women-battling-bushfires-20191213-p53jsc.html" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:blue">https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/mum-s-a-firefighter-the-women-battling-bushfires-20191213-p53jsc.html</span></a>
– Website Link Includes Video.</p>
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<span style="font-size:14.0pt">AUSTRALIA – WOMEN FIREFIGHTERS ON THE FRONTLINES</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit">Teagan Morris wields a chainsaw with a determined glare. The 22-year-old just got her bulldozer ticket and has been fighting fires for four years.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; color:white; border:none windowtext 1.0pt; padding:0in">y
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; color:white; border:none windowtext 1.0pt; padding:0in">i</span><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; color:#232323">By </span></b><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:inherit; color:#232323; border:none windowtext 1.0pt; padding:0in"><a href="https://www.theage.com.au/by/nicole-precel-gxzx81" title="Articles by Nicole Precel" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#096DD2">Nicole
Precel</span></a> - </span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:inherit; color:#232323; border:none windowtext 1.0pt; padding:0in">December 15, 2019
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:#0D0D0D"><span style="color:windowtext">Melbourne Water fire crew Renelle Verkes, 46, and Teagan Morris, 22, say firefighting is increasingly becoming an attractive career choice for women.</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0D0D0D"></span></h5>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit">There are concerns catastrophic fire conditions in NSW could hit Victoria over summer, and Ms Morris is ready for it.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit">"When I first started to now, it’s changed a lot. My age and the fact I was female was quite unusual," she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit">The number of female firefighters remains low in Victoria – in the MFB only 81 of about 2000 firefighters are women, while 5000 Country Fire Authority volunteers are women, compared to 30,000 men.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">But Ms Morris is among an increasing number of women countering the "blokey" perception of firefighting.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Melbourne Water firefighters protect 156,000 hectares of water supply catchment and work alongside CFA and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">During summer, the Melbourne Water fire crews are on watch 24/7, monitoring fires sparked by lightning.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">It’s a big job. About 60 per cent of Melbourne’s water storage capacity comes from Gippsland’s Thomson Dam, which was threatened by fire in February this year.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Melbourne Water firefighting crew leader and operations officer Renelle Verkes was part of the battle to stop that blaze.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">The 46-year-old mother-of-two joined the Hoddles Creek CFA at 14 and has battled the 2009 Black Saturday fires and countless others since. “You could go to the football club or netball club,
I went CFA,” she said.</span><img 32?="" height="32" alt="Melbourne Water firefighter Teagan Morris puts her chainsaw to use as Renelle Verkes looks on. " style="width: 0.3333in; height: 0.3333in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAME6O8bAAABEgAQAPufXEXLUU9Mg236ahALbUY%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=X7S2aew7hUaSgcEI0yYf_EBboWvWk9cIZyIVflDAMvoeCkk24NTaB5ivMa5yBLYslDfXZnYpJlo."><span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633"></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Back then, women made tea and sandwiches for the male firefighters, or did administration.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“It wasn’t heard of; a female being a lieutenant or holding a position of authority in the brigade.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Mrs Verkes worked her way through the ranks from a project firefighter and is an operations officer now.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">"Don't think you can't do it, because you can," she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">"I have worked very hard to get to where I am today, it’s not something that’s easy, it's something you have to work for. You have to work hard – that doesn’t matter whether you're male or female."</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Melbourne Water’s team leader of water civil maintenance James Tite, who is based out of Healesville, has noticed “a big shift”. This season there are 22 women and 82 men working in its fire
crews.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“It’s really good too, from a diversity point of view as well. It brings different skills and thinking,” he said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Ms Morris said advertising roles in a more inclusive manner (including images of women) helped with the push.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“The major thing they are doing is educating people that females can learn how to do these roles, and there is room for them as well. It’s not just a male industry,” she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">That's a lesson MFB Commander Donna Wheatley learnt about 16 years ago when she was working in administration at the fire brigade.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Someone told her she'd make a great firefighter.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“At that point I didn’t even realise that there were any women who were firefighters,” she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">She's since spent 15 years with crews on trucks and became one of the first of two MFB women to graduate to the rank of commander last year.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">"Although it’s a cliche, you can’t be what you can’t see. And it’s great to see more women considering firefighting as a career for them," Ms Wheatley said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Chloe Collins, 33, a project firefighter with DELWP, just returned from a deployment fighting fires at Buchan, Buchan South and Ensay.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">The Wantirna South woman swapped being a laboratory analyst and studying a bachelor of science to start a career in firefighting in November 2018.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">"It looks like we’ve been off to an early start too. We’ve had a few fires out in Gippsland already,” she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“We’ve gone into rotation this early in the season.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Along with deployments, Ms Collins is also juggling motherhood.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“The challenge is definitely very real with three young kids,” she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“They are very proud, actually – 'Mum’s a firefighter' – so they are pretty stoked about that, they do like to boast a lot.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">Beth Roberts, Forest Fire Management Victoria Gippsland deputy chief officer, also faces the challenges of raising a young family and pursuing a career she is passionate about.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">"It’s a desire to keep showing my young girls that being a woman in a leadership roles is really empowering,” she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">The 41-year-old from Maffra said change was happening, but there was more to be done.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“I have seen women progress from traditional auxiliary roles into really high level operational roles whether that’s as a sector commander on the field right through to my role as chief,” she
said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">In Forest Fire Management Victoria, about 20 per cent of frontline firefighting roles are women: 140 to 519 men.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">At Myrtleford CFA station, with dwindling volunteer numbers, captain Gloria Pizzolitto says it’s more important now than ever that people apply, regardless of their gender.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“The ladies have realised it’s not just a man’s domain anymore,” she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">The 30-year-old became a volunteer 12 years ago after a push from her brother.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633">“I was quite happy to be part of the crew, looking out for the community in times of need,” she said.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633"><img 0?="" width="626" height="417" id="Picture_x0020_7" alt="Gloria Pizzolitto is the captain of the Myrtleford CFA station. " style="width: 6.5208in; height: 4.3437in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAME6O8bAAABEgAQAL2XkolR6A5GhSuPbONJg9I%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=X7S2aew7hUaSgcEI0yYf_EBboWvWk9cIZyIVflDAMvoeCkk24NTaB5ivMa5yBLYslDfXZnYpJlo."></span><span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633"></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633; border:none windowtext 1.0pt; padding:0in">Gloria Pizzolitto is the captain of the Myrtleford CFA station. </span><i><span style="font-size:8.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#707070; text-transform:uppercase; border:none windowtext 1.0pt; padding:0in">CREDIT:</span></i><i><span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#707070; text-transform:uppercase; border:none windowtext 1.0pt; padding:0in">MYRTLEFORD
TIMES</span></i><span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:inherit; color:#0A1633"></span></p>
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