At the exit unit, the fire department is served by the first woman, she will not have any concessions
It was on September 1, the day she took office, that Žďárská was introduced to the public by the Ministry of the Interior, Vít Rakušan, and the Director General of the Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic (HZS), Lieutenant General Vladimír Vlček, directly at the fire station in Holešovice.
Both urged that the new colleague of Prague’s professional firefighters met all the physical, health and psychological requirements to become one of them and that she would not have any concessions or special privileges during her service as a member of the HZS.
Since 2019, Michaela Žďárská has worked in the volunteer fire department in Dolní Měcholupy. “I landed there thanks to an advertisement. I moved to Dolní Měcholup and the commander had posted that they were looking for someone who was over 17 years old and physically fit,” she described.
“I met the conditions, I thought I would go and try it, and I already stayed with them. They allowed me to do it – it’s not common either, but women in the volunteer fire department can start, so that was my line,” she continued.
In three years, she had 49 trips to the volunteer fire department, both for technical assistance and for fires. She helped in the removal of damage after the tornado and in the covid emergency or in providing aid in connection with the war in Ukraine.
He considers the apartment fire in April last year in Černokostelecká Street, where 14 were injured, seven of them children, to be his most difficult experience. She was the second to arrive at the scene with her unit and provided first aid to the injured.
The firefighter has also completed several courses and internships. For example, she participated in last year’s RescueDays – i.e. training in extrication from crashed vehicles, or completed training in a fire simulator. In addition, this year she started competing in the TFA (Toughest Firefighter Alive) firefighting discipline, which is a strong all-around combat simulating the work of firefighters, so she is also used to heavy equipment.
“I compete in it, we even pull 80-kilogram mannequins in it, jump over obstacles, wind hoses… You can handle it, but you need that strength,” she explained.
Žďárská said that her dream came true by being accepted to the professional unit. She revealed that she was most worried about the physical tests, which consist of sit-ups, men’s push-ups and swimming 200 meters timed.
“There are the same limits as for men, but I managed everything. Thanks to the fact that I do TFA sport, which is more or less physical preparation for the trip, it was easier for me. I go jogging, to the gym, twice a week for circuit training, so I already have a bit of physical fitness. But I had to practice swimming, I had to work there,” she said.
In Europe, up to five percent of firefighters are on the go
The first 24-hour service awaits Michaela Žďárská on Saturday. So she called the question of how I feel in a purely male collective premature. “However, it’s fine with the volunteer firefighters, we got used to each other there and we live together, so I believe it will be the same here,” she noted.
She believes that, as a woman, she could have a better effect on children, for example, thanks to her empathy during outings. “I can be worried about anything – they go to traffic accidents, to apartment fires where there are small children. But I think I will fight with it and deal with it,” she concluded.
Until now, women in the fire and rescue service have mainly worked in operational centers or in the prevention department. There are currently 969 of the 10,500 professional firefighters. In Western Europe, however, there are roughly three to five women on duty; in the USA, this proportion of units is a larger percentage, and in some brigades it reaches up to 20.
“I am convinced that this moment will open the door for us and we will have more applicants for a job at the fire department,” said Vladimír Vlček, director general of the fire department.
“We don’t really want to make any distinctions between women and men. If a woman fulfills all the qualification requirements that we want from men, there is no reason why she should not be included in the field unit,” he added, adding that the current staff of the corps is “very masculine and self-contained.”