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“I said, ‘I could do that,’” said Green, 47.
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She joined the Coon Valley Fire Department in January 2002, an all-volunteer department that serves 125-square miles spread across Coon Valley and Chaseburg and the towns of Coon, Hamburg, Washington and Greenfield.
Once motivated to join for medical reasons, Green is on the front lines of fighting fires, running into buildings that others flee.
“There are a lot of times when I’m the first person on the hose inside,” said Green of Coon Valley, who works overnights at Kohl’s department store in Onalaska. “I’m not afraid, it’s an adrenaline rush.”
Green is part of a strong female presence on the Coon Valley Fire Department, where seven of its 26 members are women. Each say they’re proud to be a part of a department not dominated by men in a field that still is.
“I think it’s pretty exciting. There just aren’t a lot of departments with that many women,” Green said.
There are about 130 career female firefighters in Wisconsin and about 6,100 nationwide, according to the International Association of Women in Fire and Emergency Services, the only agency to track such statistics. Thousands more are volunteers, but most states only collect rosters from full-time departments.
Coon Valley Fire Chief Russ Cornford can’t pinpoint why his roster is so pumped with estrogen but brags about the capabilities of the female firefighters.
“They can do anything the guys can do. I’d put my girls up against any guy,” Cornford said. “I wouldn’t trade any of them.”
The trend began in 1996, when Rhonda Brye became the first woman to join the department in its 100-year history. Her husband, Daryl Brye, now the department’s first assistant chief, signed them both up on the first Monday in June.
“We always do everything together, and I expect you’ll want to do this,” Rhonda Brye, 45, recalled her husband saying.
Two weeks later, she was suited up and knocking down her first fire during a training exercise. A nurse at both La Crosse medical centers, she said it’s the department camaraderie that has kept her an active member.
“They’re some of the hardest working females,” Rhonda Brye said. “Every single one puts 100 percent into their jobs.”
All the women are firefighters and first responders, while four are trained EMTs and one is a paramedic. Cornford said the women provide a calming effect on patients of EMS calls.
Not all the females battle blazes, but some men don’t either. Fire scenes often are chaotic and demand volunteers fill a variety of roles, such as driving tanker trucks or treating the injured.
“They’ve all got positions, and they’ve got jobs, and they do them quite well,” Daryl Brye said.
The women don’t get special treatment, and they don’t expect it either. The department’s 19 men don’t question their roles or their abilities, Cornford said.
“Since day one, I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody say ‘Well, that’s not a woman’s place,’” Cornford said. “And I don’t think anyone goes over and says ‘Here, let me do that’ because it’s a her.”
Sarah Freise is highest-ranked department female as a captain. The U.S. Army Reserves sergeant thought it was “neat” there were already four women on the department when she joined in August 2004 after her enlistment period expired.
Freise echoed the department’s pride in its female members and strong camaraderie.
“It’s like a different family,” said Freise, a Kwik Trip store leader. “It’s a different group that shares the same values.”
Nikki Yanske, 27, a nursing assistant at Vernon Memorial Hospital, joined the department eight years ago at the lead of her stepfather, mother, brother and cousin. She sticks with it for “the feeling of satisfaction when we help someone knowing that hopefully the outcome is good,” she said.
Her mother, Denise Dahlen, 44, an EMT and CNA at Vernon Memorial Hospital, signed up about a decade ago for the opportunity to help others at the time they need it the most. It’s the same reason that keeps her on the department.
The mother-daughter pair is often in charge of driving the tanker truck and making sure there’s water at the scene.
A couple of times they’ve stuck an oval magnet on the truck’s front bumper.
It read “Girls rule.”
