In conjunction with Women in the Fire Service, the College is supporting the participation of an all-women’s team in the 2018 National BA Challenge. The Challenge will take place at the College on Saturday 6 October with training to take place before the event.

Who do we need?

Each team has 5 people. We need:

• An Officer in Charge – can be a firefighter training for promotion
• 2 x BA wearers
• 1 x ECO
• 1 x Fireground crew

(does not have to be a driver)

What skills do I need?

• You don’t have to have competed before, and the team may come from different services
• Crews will attend one real fire incident at FSC, with 30 minutes to rescue persons reported missing
• All crew members will be observed and receive feedback
• Our crew will receive training and development on the FSC incident ground

 To find out more about the 2018 BA Challenge visit www.nbac.co.uk

Robin Whittington, Head of Training, Fire Service College says “The National BA Challenge promotes best practice and is open to all of the UK fire and rescue services. The College is proud to have hosted the event since its inception in 2007. However, the number of women taking part hasn’t reflected the number of women firefighters in service. This year the College would like to encourage wider participation by women firefighters which is why we have decided to support the participation of an all-women’s team.

“The announcement of this support at the recently held Women in the Fire Service Training and Development Weekend has drawn a lot of interest. While we are planning to support an all-women’s team drawn from different services, it is already exciting to see female firefighters looking to come together as a team to represent their individual service. There are also inter-brigade discussions around coming together to form regional teams.”

Next steps

Interested in taking part? Make sure to email Jenny Hill at jhill@fireservicecollege.ac.uk with the following information:

• Name
• Role
• Service
• Contact email and phone number
• Position/s interested in (Select all that apply):
  • Incident Commander, BA wearer, ECO, Fireground operator

This doesn’t commit you to anything at this stage! Just let us know if you are interested and we will keep you in the loop. We are keen to hear from as many women as possible, this isn’t a ‘selection’ test process!