This is not a typical summer camp. But Michelle Pawlaw is glad she signed up for it.“Getting to experience the fires hands-on is really cool and something that most people don’t get to do," she said.Michelle and eight other teenage girls are participating in the three-day camp offered by the Arlington County Fire Department located just outside of Washington.Firefighter Clare Burley is in charge of the program.“The purpose is to try to get young women interested in considering the fire service as a career," she said.The free of charge, overnight camp is designed to let the girls experience what firefighters do in the line of duty to protect the community.That includes some rigorous activities such as moving a fire victim.“I didn’t think I could pull that 170-pound body 77 kg with a friend, but I was actually able to do it," she said.They take classes and learn how to climb the ladder on a fire truck, operate emergency tools and rescue an injured person.They also do their share of cleaning the firehouse and the equipment.“Every week without fail on a Saturday, the job is to wash all the rigs and wash the floors.And we wanted the girls to see this is what we do. This is a typical day in a firehouse," she said.Firefighting is still a male-dominated service, but Burley says with 22 women on its force of 320 the Arlington Fire Department is above the national average of 4.5 percent.
