Overcoming adversity in the fire service

February 14, 2023

Wichmann walks out of Cedar Rapids school after responding to a fire alarm on Monday, Jan. 2, 2023. As a female firefighter, Wichmann tries to make herself available and approachable for community members of all ages to ask questions, which is what she does at the Young Women’s Fire Academy. The academy was started by the CRFD in 2017 and helps to provide skills and opportunities for women ages 16 and older to learn about firefighting as a career. Wichmann said she still talks to women who went through the academy.

Some women have been actively battling constraints in the fire service for years, Julie Popelka, a current firefighter at the Cedar Rapids Fire Department, said.

Firefighters Wichmann, Michael McFarlane, Shelby Van Weelden, Zack Howell, and Jake Bawek test their ladder skills at a training tower in Cedar Rapids on Monday, Jan. 2, 2023. In her time in the fire service, Wichmann said she’s been treated very well on the management and crew level and has the support one needs in the CRFD. “We’re here 24 hours a day, we experience the same calls,” Wichmann said. “Working with these people day in and day out, you forge a very special bond with them” (Grace Smith/The Daily Iowan)

Popelka started working for the department about 20 years ago when she was 42 years old. At the time she started in the department, there were two other female firefighters who passed along their advice on overcoming adversity in the field.

And overcoming adversity is exactly what Popelka had to do.

Popelka stood shoeless in the kitchen during her rookie year at the station, making cookies for her coworkers during some downtime the firefighters had in between calls. As she was running around and baking cookies, an older male firefighter walked in laughing and made the comment, “Yep, that’s where the woman should be: barefoot in the kitchen.”

Popelka said although he may not have meant it in a crude way, it has stuck with her during her 20 years in the fire service.

Popelka said the department continues to improve representation and accept women in the field.

In 2017, the department created the Young Women’s Fire Academy to introduce women and girls ages 16 and older to the fire service by providing skills and opportunities for participants to learn about firefighting as a career.

Popelka said during the academy a couple of years ago, women were participating in a fitness challenge, and one of the battalion chiefs of the department came down to observe. And as one woman was running through the challenge, the chief was shocked to see every participant cheering the woman on and supporting her through the entire challenge.

“The battalion chief afterward came up and told us, ‘It’s just amazing to see the difference. Men wouldn’t be doing that,’” Popelka said. “It was just neat for him to see how the women encouraged each other.”