Lacey England on challenging stereotypes and protecting the outdoors as a wild land firefighter.
I’ve always been interested in people with careers that allow them to spend time outside and contribute to the greater good. That’s how I found out about wild land firefighter Lacey England. REI is launching a video called “Women in Fire” on April 30th that features Lacey and some other bad ass female firefighters. Lacey was also profiled in the National Forest Foundation series, “Drawn to Flame: Women Forged by Fire.”
Lacey’s wild idea: to protect the environment by fighting fires in the wild.
Fighting wild fires is a career I never heard much about as a kid, so I was fascinated by how Lacey got into it. She shared her story, plus the less than glamorous life of her job (it involves Spam and carrying insanely heavy packs), what her day-to-day training entails and what it’s like to be in a field that is dominated by people that don’t look like her. Plus, she tells us why she’s passionate about inspiring the next generation of young women to pursue careers that may fall outside the norm.
Listen to this episode if:
- You want to protect the environment.
- You’ve never thought about being a firefighter.
- You want to be incredibly strong. Like hulk strong.
- You’re a woman in a male-dominated field.
- You like being alone in the outdoors.