Kyleigh Lough, 12, held a large fire hose and opened the nozzle, shooting a powerful jet of water 20 feet into a green traffic cone and knocking it over.
“It looks really fun, I think,” Kyleigh said when asked if she might like to be a firefighter one day. “They don’t just fight fires — they help people. They go along with police officers and help people who get hurt.”
Kyleigh and about 60 other kids took part in the third annual Teen Firefighter Camp at Fire Station No. 7 next to the airport on Tuesday. The camp is designed to expose teens to the skills necessary to be a firefighter. About half of the attendees were young women, a population the Lakeland Fire Department is targeting for recruitment because only eight of its 150 firefighter/emergency medical technicians are women.