Like 197,000 people in France, this 39-year-old specialist educator, part of the Community of Corsica in the field of child welfare, has chosen to voluntarily engage with firefighters.
Faced with the increasing fires in a France hit by a historic drought, the government this week called on employers to release as many of these volunteer firefighters as possible, who represent nearly 80% of firefighters in France. Corsica thus has a thousand volunteer firefighters and 200 professional firefighters.
“Basically, it’s really a vocation”, confides to AFP the one who “loves the missions, the village, the mountains”.
In a relationship with a professional firefighter, she recognizes that planning her weeks is not an easy task: “It’s really organization, anticipation! We have a schedule on paper with my companion” and “when one is on call ( at the fire brigade), the other no, but in the summer, we sometimes cross paths”.
On average, she provides “24-hour duty per week” once or twice to respond to emergency relief requests. “In summer, a little more for monitoring forest fires, we make the effort,” she says.
“From Monday to Friday, I am a civil servant with also on-call duty in child protection and practically all my weekends, I am in the barracks”, she describes, specifying to manage “still to preserve family time” and to be able to count “sometimes on the grandmothers who take over” for her daughter.
Especially since beyond the hours in the barracks, volunteer firefighters must be operational in the same way as a professional firefighter.
“We have a lot of training and a physical assessment every year,” she adds, pointing out that the Collectivity of Corsica, like other institutions or companies, plans by agreement to make them available to the fire and emergency services. rescue (Sdis) up to 30 days a year.
– “Constant adrenaline” –
For her, there is no crisis of commitment within the volunteer firefighters, in Corsica or elsewhere: “Many young people come to try the experience but it is complicated to perpetuate”.
She specifies that professional and volunteer firefighters do exactly the same thing: “We have the same training, the advancement of ranks is almost the same thing, the crews are mixed from all points of view, men and women, professionals and volunteers. “.
If she suffers “sometimes from lack of availability, fatigue, lack of sleep” and if “some interventions are very complicated at the emotional level”, “you have to get over it, continue”. “It’s part of the package with this constant adrenaline, that’s what’s exciting,” she insists.
And then “my daughter, I know she is very proud. She says my mom, she puts out fires”, she slips smiling.
The “human” side of his mission excites him: “We really get into the heart of people’s lives”, “we will bring help, sometimes just comfort, a word, knowing that we are making people safe, that’s what motivates me too”.
For ten years, she believes that “the profession has changed over the evolutions of society”.
“When you go through an unprecedented health crisis (as with the Covid-19), being a first aid actor, there is sure to be pressure. We were confronted with a virus, at the beginning, we didn’t know at all what it was and you had to go anyway,” she recalls.
“There is also climate change, fire pressure which becomes very strong in summer, drought”.
If she has considered on several occasions to become a professional firefighter, she cannot bring herself to stop her “basic profession” in child protection which “also fascinates her”. “I manage to do both. For the moment I am good like that”.
