Firefighter Joyce has joined the ranks of the Fire and Rescue NSW Tamworth city team and is on a mission to have other firefighters, both men and women, join the brigade.

After working in Albury and Wagga, Narelle traded her post at Cranebrook Station in Sydney for a tree change to the bush, and hasn’t looked back.

“I love it,” she told The Leader.

Narelle is the only permanent female firefighter in the region, but there are retained females on the frontline in a number of the New England North West stations.

They are on call day and night, backing up the full-time teams who staff the fire stations during the day.

But if she has anything to do with it, there will be many more firefighters in the ranks in the years to come.

“From a recruitment kind of side, women can do the job and there is nothing that they can’t do,” Narelle said.

“It’s exciting, challenging and a rewarding job.

“You learn so many new things ... you get rewarded in so many other ways.”

It’s not only fighting fires and helping out with emergencies such as car accidents and gas leaks where you see the local firefighters these days.

“We go to schools and do pre-education talks; we go to the elderly and disabled people’s houses and put up smoke alarms for them,” Narelle said.

“It’s a lot of public awareness with the work we do now – it’s to make people more aware of fires in the home and about fire prevention.

“I can say smoke detectors definitely save lives.”

And as for the city versus country debate, this firefighter says the bush definitely wins.

“Working in the country stations is much better, (they have) much nicer people, and there is the country people, they’re friendly,” Narelle joked.

“I did actually live in Tamworth over 20 years ago ... so it’s kind of a home away from home, really.”