SCARBOROUGH, Maine — The Scarborough Fire Department welcomed 75 junior firefighters from across the state on Sunday to participate in the second annual Junior Firefighter Muster.
Junior firefighters put their skills to the test while representing their departments. They competed in five separate events, including hose rolling, gear donning, changing a cylinder, and some group events like stretching a hose and dressing a fire hydrant.
As some fire departments across Maine are struggling to fill positions, events like this can inspire the next generation of first responders.
"You can try this out at a very young age and decide if it's something for you," Daryen Granata, a captain at the Scarborough Fire Department, said. "Public safety is a dying breed. It's very important that we feed it from the back end."
Autumn Lane, a 16-year-old, works as a junior firefighter in Richmond. She said this muster gave her some new experiences she wouldn't otherwise have gotten.
"There's a lot of things we didn't know that we got to experience coming here," Lane said.
She said she had always wanted to be a firefighter, but she never saw it as a realistic option for her.
"I've always wanted to, but I never kind of saw, as being like a small girl, I never saw being a woman on a fire department as a thing," Lane said.
However, she became a junior firefighter within the past few months, learning some of the basic foundational skills of the profession. The goal of Sunday's event is to help kids like Lane learn new skills and engage with fire service workers who could help them on their path to a potential career in the field.