04-03-2025
Pasadena's Trailblazing Female Firefighters
They call her Boss Lady. Her real name is Captain Jodi Slicker. And on January 7, she was at the helm of a fire department tasked with extinguishing a raging blaze that decimated nearly 10,000 homes and businesses, obliterated entire neighborhoods and wiped out more than 14,000 acres, going down as one of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California history. Still pending investigation, the Eaton Fire, which, along with the Palisades Fire, ransacked Los Angeles County and left an apocalyptic trail of detritus and structural loss in its wake, likely began as a spark from a downed power line atop the foothills of Eaton Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountain range of the Angeles Crest Forest. Hurricane-force winds thrashed throughout Altadena and Pasadena on that fateful January night. And what began as a meteorological wind event boiled to a pitch of white-hot intensity that Slicker, a seasoned paramedic-firefighter who's worked in the field for over two decades and is only the second female captain to hold the position in the Pasadena Fire Department's 138-year history, had never before experienced.'On January 6, we were told there was going to be a windstorm, and we knew that once those winds picked up we were going to go into emergency mode,' says Slicker, regularly stationed at Pasadena Fire Dept. headquarters on North Marengo Ave. 'We're dispatched under Verdugo [Fire Communications Center], which is based in Glendale, and they dispatch 13 other cities. At about 4 p.m. on January 7, we went to level B emergency mode, just as the winds were picking up. So that means the battalion chief at station 34 will dispatch all service calls for resources. Verdugo was getting overwhelmed with calls at that point. So we're now getting calls–wires are down, trees are down–and then, after about 6:20 p.m., the brush fire kicks off. And then the calls start picking up. Now we've got a structure fire. By around 7 p.m., the battalion chief is telling us, 'We've got 10 pending calls now.' People were calling in screaming, 'My house is on fire! My house is on fire! My house is on fire!'The Palisades Fire had erupted earlier that evening, and Slicker had already dispatched two fire engines from Pasadena to help that community, which is standard practice. 'We are an eight-station department,' notes Slicker. 'We have eight engines, two trucks.' Now, as the Eaton Fire ignited, burning a rapid, pugnacious path, Slicker's primary thought was, 'we don't have enough resources.' Slicker flung into action, recalling every firefighter in the department's roster, including those off-duty. 'We threw them on engines,' she says. 'We threw them on pick-up trucks. I said, 'grab any tool, any hose that you have.' We put them on rescue ambulances, and we just sent them out there. It was go time. I dispatched 500 calls in 24 hours. House fire, house fire, house fire.'On the day we meet, at Fire Station 37, Slicker is calm and cool and direct, smacking her hands together as she recounts the inferno that engulfed Altadena, parts of Pasadena and Sierra Madre. Slicker is all business. All boss. Her pixie cut is perfect, not a blonde hair out of place. Her blue eyes flicker with unflappable intensity. Slicker is the pinnacle of cool. Slicker also possesses a tack-sharp sense of humor, as evidenced in her 2025 Oscars ceremony debut wherein the Pasadena fire captain traded barbs with host Conan O'Brien during the telecast's live tribute to L.A. County's intrepid heroes. "I always thought rushing into a burning building took courage," quipped Slicker. "But you, Conan, coming out here with those jokes, that took guts."
That sass, that unshakeable confidence. That is peak Slicker. Raised in Murrieta, in Riverside County, Slicker grew up in 'a fire-service family.' Her father worked for the West Covina Fire Department for over 30 years. On paper, she appeared destined for this sort of career. But Slicker never wanted to be a firefighter. 'Growing up in sports, I wanted to be a lawyer,' she says. 'Then I wanted to be a physician's assistant. And then I got a scholarship to play volleyball at Cal State Fullerton. So I went there, and studied kinesiology. At that point I had no desire to do anything within the fire department. My dad never knew a female firefighter, never worked with a female firefighter. He didn't think it was possible.'
How wrong he was. And while the fire-service continues to be a male dominated field–the National Fire Protection Association reports that less than 5% of career firefighters in the United States are women, which mirrors the California average as well–the pervasive stigma that women can't perform as effectively as men in the face of a wildfire is unfounded. Antiquated nonsense. Just ask Christina Terrazas. Nickname: Fire Mama (she's a single mom to a 12-year-old daughter). She's served the Pasadena Fire Department for 23 years and is currently the only female paramedic-fire engineer in the city-wide department. Terrazas is also only the second female engineer ever promoted in the fire department's history. And her job is cutthroat. She drives the 'big red' (fire truck), is responsible for all of its equipment and personnel on board, operates all fire apparatus (pumper, water tank) and performs emergency paramedic services. There's also math, hydraulics and converting the different sizes of hoses in diameter to meet the objective of how much water is needed to extinguish a roaring flame. There's the matter of water pressure and volume and memorizing every single street within a fire's perimeter. To be a fire engineer requires a solid command of science. 'It's the hardest test in the fire service,' says Terrazas, tapping her manicured nails–freshly-painted nails are au courant in the fire house–against a desk in what's referred to as the Station 37 'Captain's Office.' 'It's a very, very tough test,' she continues. 'A lot of people take it multiple times.'
Like Slicker, Terrazas was a teenage athlete in her hometown of Ventura, playing volleyball, soccer and running cross-country track. By the time she was in high school, she had her heart set on a fire-service career.
'I was told, no,' says Terrazas. 'Everyone was like, they don't have girls, this is like a guy thing.'
Terrazas didn't listen. Instead, she began hanging out at the local fire station after school. By senior year, she was accepted into the Explorer Program, a joint venture between county fire departments and high schools that provides aspiring firefighters with education, training and mentorship opportunities. Terrazas excelled. That her competence would ever be called into question because of her gender is preposterous, she asserts.
To wit, the Pasadena Fire Department boasts a higher percentage of female firefighters compared to other same-sized departments in other California districts.
'There are a lot of successful women in this world,' says Terrazas. 'And I feel like we're unique in a way, because in order for you to be promoted in this line of work you can't worry about what people think of you. We are determined individuals. We are made up in the Pasadena Fire Department of competent, capable, knowledgeable firefighters that have the skills, tools, and the ability to go out and help the public. We have the willingness and the courage and the desire to serve. No matter if you're male or female in this profession, we've all been part of the same recruitment and training. If any person came and saw what we do every day, they would see that sometimes there are women that are better than men–and sometimes there are men that are better than women. We're all here as a team.'
'I think inherently, because we're in a male-dominant field, we go above and beyond,' adds Slicker. 'I don't care what people think; it's just our character. We're going to prove ourselves. Every single day. And that's what makes us really good at our job.'
Working a schedule of two days on and four days off means that, for 48 hours straight, barring emergency calls, the female firefighters, and their male cohorts, live together at the station. They go on coffee runs and eat breakfast. They're more than professional colleagues. 'We're family,' says Pasadena firefighter-paramedic Hailee Topete (posted at station 36B). Short and petite, they call her Red, a nod to her flame-red hair.
'We take care of each other,' she says.
Like family, these firefighters share a collective calling, an innate drive that supersedes any fear the average civilian might feel in the face of a mass casualty event such as the Eaton Fire.
'We're conditioned for this kind of work,' says Terrazas, noting that the outside world does not stop, not even for a deadly inferno. As they raced to gain control over the Eaton Fire, the Pasadena Fire Department was simultaneously answering calls for emergencies ranging from one man having a heart attack to a woman giving birth in the street.
'We're accustomed to knowing how to manage our energy, what we call our fire ground pace, but we all get exhausted. We're human, right?' says Terrazas 'We also run our adrenaline, like the rest of the world. We are sworn to work through fatigue, no matter what. That was the oath we took. We know that when the world is in need, they call 9-11. There is no 9-1-2.' But there is no predicting the precise wrath of Mother Nature. And the unprecedented size and speed and magnitude of the Eaton blaze was something that left Nicole Olsen, a paramedic-firefighter with over 20 years of experience, gobsmacked. It was morning on January 8 when she drove into work at Pasadena's Station 38. And it was 'completely black' outside. 'There was a lot of fire. A lot of smoke. It sounded like bombs going off. It sounded like a war zone,' says Olsen, known as Coco when on the clock. 'Propane tanks were going off, houses on fire had ammunition inside them. Sirens were going off up and down Lake Avenue. There was a part of my brain that was like, what are you doing? Go home. And then I had to check myself and fall back on my confidence training and go, no, this is your job.''We could have an ocean full of water, but with that amount of fire, amount of heat, amount of wind and number of structures burning up at one point–there was no getting ahead of it,' adds Olsen. Sometimes, says Pasadena firefighter-paramedic Tawnie Ingalls ('they call me TJ,' she says), the job pressure mounts to such massive heights that she 'surprises herself' at just how laser-focused she is.
'I race motorcycles, and when I am riding, there is nothing else going on in my head except for exactly what I'm doing at that moment,' says Ingalls, based out of Old Town's Station 31A. 'I liken that to what happened on the night the fires broke out. You just go into fight mode. There's no flight. It's just fight.' The Eaton Fire is now contained, but when and if another disaster strikes, the fearless, female firefighters will be ready. They always are.'This is our job, this is our focus,' says Terrazas. 'We do not have the mindset of going out and selecting who we go out and save: we save everyone if we can. Every single person. That's the intent. That's what we do. For us, it's a matter of life–or death.'
