by Jess McCuan / portrait by Steve Mann

To get hired, they carry a 45-pound pack three miles, hoist chainsaws and other heavy tools off a truck, climb a 75-foot ladder, and drag a dummy that weighs 170 pounds—more than most women on the force weigh themselves.

On the Asheville Fire and Rescue Department force of 227, there are 13 women, so they rarely get a chance to work together. “The [women] have to have a little bit tougher skin,” says public information officer Kelley Webb. “You’re basically living with a bunch of guys.”

The department is recruiting women, but the gig can be a tough sell: try starting a job working dangerous 24-hour shifts and riding on the back of a speeding truck. Sure, you get days off, but childcare can be difficult. “Being away from my kid that long—it’s hard when he gets in from school. He knows I have to be here until the next day,” says Joy Ponder, a 35-year-old North Asheville lieutenant. Engineer Charley Cox, 33, says she loves being a firefighter but misses her four-month-old daughter, Soren. “I had no complaints until I had a daughter,” she says.

Still, the rewards are many. How cool is it to save lives and ride (or drive) a big powerful truck? Ruth Olson, a 45-year-old engineer, says her daughters love it. “They like it that I’m a fireman. They tell me it makes them feel really safe.” 

Ruth Olson, 45
Position: Engineer
Post: Station 8
Years with the fire department: 15

In the case of the Olsons, it was Ruth who wanted to be a firefighter first. Fifteen years ago, her husband, Herman, a salesman, was only training with her to be supportive. But they ended up joining the fire department at the same time and now both drive trucks at the same station (fire department regulations require them to work alternating days). Before firefighting, Ruth tended bar, answered phones and worked as a waitress. She thought office work sounded boring and heard about the fire department from a friend. It sounded different—you were on the move all the time and had to stay physically fit.

The only time she ever felt uneasy fighting fires was after she had her first child, Samantha, now 10. “After the first baby—I just remember thinking—I can’t let anything happen to me. I’ve got a child at home that needs me.” And yet, that didn’t stop her from riding on the truck well into the seventh month of both pregnancies, something no other Asheville firefighter has done. Her doctor had signed off, and Ruth herself was fine with active duty. The situation was most nerve-racking, in fact, for the men she worked with. “They were very protective,” she says. “They were like—‘You’re pregnant. You shouldn’t be here.’” One night, when she was several months pregnant with Samantha, she and her crew got called to a house fire. “My captain was beside himself—he was stressed,” she says. “It was stressing them out. They felt like I should be working upstairs doing office work.”

Ruth doesn’t want special treatment, and she thinks fellow female firefighters feel the same. She tells people she started as a “backman” and, without missing a beat, refers to herself as a “fireman” and not a “firefighter,” or even a “firewoman.” “I don’t get offended when people don’t change things from fireman to firewoman,” she says. “The job transcends gender. We don’t want any special terms. We just want to blend in.”

Kelley Webb, 37
Position: Public Information Officer
Post: Station 1
Years with the fire department: 12

Like Ruth Olson, Kelley Webb is married to an Asheville firefighter, which can make it seem like her world revolves around the fire department. After working on the back of a truck for six years, she married Mike Webb, now a rescue captain at Station 3. Not long after the wedding, Kelley “moved upstairs,” taking a more administrative role in the department. Now, anytime a major fire breaks out, Webb handles media calls in the middle of the night. She’s also the fire and life safety educator, which means educating people about, among other things, emergency escape plans. She’s responsible for all news releases (emergency or not), she handles arrangements when a fire truck rides in a parade and she manages the department’s website, newsletter and internal videos.

While she sometimes misses her days “on line” responding to emergencies, she gets an adrenaline rush now training for and competing in the Firefighter’s Combat Challenge, where a team of five female firefighters compete in drills that simulate firefighting situations. The Asheville women’s team has made it to the national Combat Challenge championships in Las Vegas for the last three years in a row.

Charley Cox, 33
Position: Engineer
Post: Station 4
Years with the fire department: 8

Charley Cox always knew she wanted to be a firefighter. Her grandfather was a fireman and her father spent 25 years in the military, so public service was a natural fit. After New York City’s firefighters became national heroes on September 11, 2001, she says her dad and family have never been more proud of her career choice. 

She also digs the daily routine. Working out is “cathartic” for her (even though the rest of us schlubs would probably find some other descriptions for her drill). She curls 40-pound dumbbells three days a week, hoists other free weights for core and leg strength and climbs the stair-stepper for at least an hour a day. Cox, who played safety and running back for Asheville’s women’s football team, the Asheville Assault, from 2001 to 2005, takes training particularly seriously. It helps prepare her for events like one of the most harrowing rescues she can remember: an elderly woman had driven off of Town Mountain Road on her way home from church. When Cox’s crew found her, at the bottom of a steep embankment, they weren’t sure if she was dead or alive, but the woman squeezed Cox’s hand. “She was so frail,” Cox says. “I thought—she’s somebody’s grandmother. I’d want someone to give my grandmother that kind of compassion and attention.”

You’d think dealing with such emergencies all the time would be a soul-crusher. But Cox feels buoyed by the job. “When people call the fire department, they’re at their most vulnerable and worst. Every day, I’m reminded of that. If I think I’m having a bad day, I see somebody who’s having a really bad day and I realize, in the grand scheme of things, my day is not that bad.”

Kelly Hinz, 38
Position: Assistant Fire Marshall
Post: Station 1
Years with the fire department: 8

In some ways, it’s hard to measure whether Kelly Hinz is doing a good job. As assistant fire marshal, she spends a good deal of her day inspecting and trying to prevent fires, which can mean making the rounds to businesses to check fire extinguishers and extension cords. “When the stats are down as far as fires, I feel like I’m doing my job,” she says.

Hinz, who grew up in Miami and wanted to be a physical therapist, got a job as a UPS driver during college and never finished a four-year degree. She moved to Asheville in 1998 and took a job as a firefighter but she says she couldn’t see herself at 60 still riding the back of a fire truck. “I got bored sitting waiting for something to happen in the fire station,” she says. “My brain wanted something else… I felt there was more to the career than just responding to emergencies.”

Hinz got a two-year degree at AB-Tech, then went to Western Carolina University for a bachelor’s degree in emergency management. Now she’s pursuing a master’s degree in strategic leadership from the Hickory location of West Virginia’s Mountain State University. “Part of going to school and getting degrees is me being able to prove to myself that I deserve [this job],” she says. “I want to have to have earned it. I don’t want a job just because I’m a female.”

Joy Ponder, 35
Position: Lieutenant
Post: Station 7
Years with the fire department: 10

Compared to Joy Ponder’s previous posts downtown, Station 7 in North Asheville—where there are only four people—feels a bit like a family. Except everyone in the family happens to works for her. Ponder, who was just promoted from firefighter to lieutenant last year, is the highest-ranked female firefighter working “on line,” or out on emergency calls. She spent her first nine years riding the back of a truck. Now she drives one, directing firefighters and any incoming units about what she expects them to do, where they should be looking for hidden fires or civilians climbing out windows. Being a lieutenant means Ponder is in command of emergency scenes until a battalion chief shows up. A majority of the time, she and her crew respond to medical emergencies. “There are a limited number of ambulances in the county, but there’re all these fire stations,” she says. “A lot of times we’ll be there first.”

Ponder has a graduate degree in physiology from UNC-Greensboro and says most people don’t realize how much medical training firefighters go through. “We can do a little bit of everything,” she says. They also don’t realize that women are a very good fit for a job that involves so many medical calls. “When people are hurt, they’re more comfortable talking to the women. We’re all well-trained, we’re competent, we’re strong,” she says.