For the first time at the Pacific Regional FireFit Championships, the Yukon will have a women’s team.

“We’re excited to be doing what we’re doing and we love it,” said team captain Kelsie Olsen.

Olsen, 21, is a volunteer firefighter with the Golden Horn Department and will be joined by Megan Coyne (Ibex Fire Department), Elizabeth Boyd (Mount Lorne Fire Department) and Sydney Johnson (Ibex Valley Fire Department).

The women’s team is all under 30.

“It’s been really positive,” said Olsen. “We’ve all been working really hard.”

The group started training together in January this year and along with the male Yukon representatives, have been training at least three times a week for an hour over lunch breaks.

“The men’s team has been really supportive,” said Olsen. “The community is really supportive of us as well.”

The FireFit course they will be competing on at regionals in Langley, B.C., this weekend simulates a fire ground and includes running up stairs with a coil of hose, hoisting up rope, hammering through a force machine, carrying a charged hose and finally, dragging a 185-lb. dummy , all while wearing full gear and breathing compressed air through a mask.

“It’s all hard,” said Olsen. But she anticipates she will have the most trouble with the dummy drag.

“It’s the last section, so you’re already exhausted,” she said.

But Olsen will be happy just to cross the finish line and said, “We know our whole team has our back no matter what.”

The Yukon has been sending teams to the pacific regionals for the past two years.

“This year the firefighting community has stepped up its game and now includes Yukon’s first women’s FireCombat team,” said men’s team captain, Boyd Pyper. “This is great news and reflects the diversity of our fire service.”

Also competing will be two men’s teams including Geoffrey Hann, Kevin Mendelsohn, Thibaut Rondel, Shaun Cooke, Myron Penner, Ray Sabo and Pyper.

The fire combat teams will be racing the clock in B.C. and hope to qualify for the national championships at the end of the summer in Ottawa.

“It would be amazing,” said Olsen at the prospect of advancing to nationals.

She hopes that by competing in the FireFit competition, it shows how strong women are.

“We might be smaller and have less body strength,” she said, “but we can certainly excel at sports and firefighting.”