All-female firefighter crew staffs local station for first time in department's history

LOS ANGELES -- History has been made when a local fire station was staffed by an all female crew.

For the first time ever in the Pasadena, CA Fire Department, the entire engine crew rolling out of Station 34 was female. The all-female crew were under the command of Capt. Tricia Rodriguez.

"FIRST all-female crew in history of Pasadena Fire Department riding together on Engine 34," a social media post picturing the four of them said.

The team consisted of Rodriguez, two firefighters and an engineer. The four say they found out the previous night they were all going to be working together on the same shift.

"The message to anyone is, if you have a dream or a vision, you can achieve it," Rodriguez said. "This is something we have looked forward to growing up and we put a lot of effort into it. We trained, and we studied and we took the same test everybody else did and we didn't give up."

The firefighters say the staffing isn't permanent and isn't likely to happen very often. It worked out due to vacations and overtime in the department. The city has eight female firefighters who work throughout Pasadena at various levels.