Hey, I’m Athena. Active firefighter. CrossFit coach. Fire academy instructor at Monterey Peninsula College. And someone who has spent years helping women go from “I think I want to do this” to actually getting the job. This community exists because when I came up, there wasn’t a space like this. There wasn’t a woman who’d done it, waiting to show you the way. I had to figure a lot of it out the hard way. You don’t have to. Here’s what this community is for: • Women who are curious about becoming a firefighter and don’t know where to start • Women actively training for their CPAT who want real guidance • Women in the hiring process or fire academy who need support • Women who just want to get strong and are drawn to this world Here’s what we’re NOT: • A place where you’ll be told it’s too hard • A place where you have to pretend to have it all together • A place where your questions are dumb To get started, drop a comment below and tell us: 1. Where are you in the process? 2. What’s your biggest challenge or fear right now? 3. What’s your why — why do you want this? I read every single one. This community is small on purpose right now — because I want to actually know you, not just have followers. Welcome to the team. Let’s get to work. 🔥 ~Athena

In 2009 I was 29 years old, sitting in a windowless government basement, staring at a computer screen thinking… this cannot be my life. I knew I was meant to do more. I just didn’t know what. I looked into police work first — but my husband wasn’t on board. So I kept searching for ways to serve and stumbled onto firefighting. And then I almost talked myself out of it immediately, because I honestly wasn’t sure women could be firefighters. But something in me said keep going. Here’s what I was working with at the time: I was a mom of 4 kids — one was still a baby, the others in elementary school. I had zero athletic background. I didn’t play sports growing up. I wasn’t lifting weights. I was, as they say, a cardio bunny coming off the couch. And the field? It was overwhelmingly male. There weren’t many women ahead of me to look to. Barely any resources online. I was figuring most of it out alone — and it was hard and isolating in ways I didn’t expect. Then I found her. One woman. A firefighter and a mom, who saw me struggling and decided I was worth her time. She took me under her wing and walked me through the entire process — fitness, training, the academy, all of it. She was a gem. She didn’t have to do that. But she did. And I made myself a promise the moment I graduated: one day I will pay this forward. Because I learned something she taught me without ever saying it out loud — we cannot do this alone. And we shouldn’t have to. I graduated from Monterey Peninsula College’s fire academy in 2011. I became a firefighter. A CrossFit coach. Then a fitness instructor at the very academy I graduated from. And quietly, over the years, I started helping other women do what I did — get strong, pass the CPAT, survive the academy, and get hired. A few of them have. And every single time, something in me lights up that no other accomplishment touches. That’s why FireFit Women exists. Because in 2009 I needed this community and it didn’t exist. I needed someone who had done it to say yes, you can too — and here’s exactly how.