New Zealand’s very first all-female professional firefighter calendar has been launched.
Thirteen firefighters from nine stations across three cities posed for the Wāhine Toa Firefighter Calendar, with money raised going to a charity for breast cancer research.
Calendar co-organisers Nicole Koch and Zoe Feau spoke to Breakfast about the strength, pride, and femininity of those on the frontline.
The Wāhine Toa Firefighter Calendar brings together 13 firefighters from nine stations across three cities. (Source: Breakfast)
“Zoe and I were actually on shift together, we were talking about the men’s calendar and we were like ‘why isn’t there a woman’s one?’ So we’re just like, ‘maybe we should just make one ourselves and how hard could it be?’ And then it just went from there,” Koch said.
“I honestly don’t know what happened, I just feel like we had this idea and then bam, all of a sudden we were making it. It was outrageous,” she laughed.
Zoch said there were “a lot of moving parts” to making a calendar such as this one, but the men’s team offered supportive advice and helpful insights about the process.
Feau said partnering with Breast Cancer Cure was a “natural cause for us because we wanted to choose something that was really specific to women”.
“And a few of the girls from the calendar and throughout firefighting have had close connections with breast cancer, it just felt really fitting,” she said.
To get the hype going, the group posted a sneak preview reel on Instagram last week, which boosted their following from 500 followers to around 30,000 overnight.
The Instagram account was now at 70,400 and counting.
“We’ve been getting messages from all around the world. People are really, excited and want to buy the calendar. It’s actually been really overwhelming,” laughed Koch.
The calendar could be purchased from the Breast Cancer Cure website from today.
Previous volunteer firefighter calendars have featured women, but this is the first time New Zealand’s female career firefighters have come together for a national fundraising calendar.
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