Turning up the heat: New Zealand rolls out first all-women firefighter calendar

Those Kiwis can surely light a fire as quickly as they can douse one.

Thirteen women from nine fire stations across three cities have posed for New Zealand’s first all-female Wahine Toa Firefighter Calendar to raise funds for breast cancer research.

“The guys have always had their own calendar, and we thought: Why not us too?” career firefighter and organiser Nicole Koch told online news site Stuff.

“We work hard and take our jobs seriously, so this was a chance to do something fun while raising money for a cause that matters.”

Her co-organiser, Ms Zoe Feau, told New Zealand’s 1 News: “I honestly don’t know what happened... We had this idea and then, bam, all of a sudden, we were making it. It was outrageous.”

The team had hoped to sell 5,000 copies of the 2026 calendar, with all proceeds going to breast cancer research. That sold out in 26 hours, raising some NZ$100,000 (S$75,000). A second pre-order is open until Nov 10.

To get the hype going, the group created an Instagram account showing teaser shots of what might end up in the calendar, as well as behind-the-scenes videos of the women having a great time during the photo shoots.

One video has been seen close to 17 million times.

“We’ve been getting messages from all around the world. People are really excited and want to buy the calendar. It’s actually been really overwhelming,” said Ms Koch.

Ms Feau said the women involved wanted the campaign to make a “tangible impact” while also “celebrating visibility and pride within the profession”.

For firefighter Samara Pepperell, the campaign is also deeply personal, as she saw her mother battle breast cancer more than a decade ago.

“Mum’s journey taught me how powerful hope and community can be,” she said. “This calendar is our way of paying that forward.”

Finding the right tone for the calendar was one of the early challenges, Ms Koch said.

“For a long time, the question was how to celebrate strength and femininity without being oversexualised,” she said.

“Now feels like the right time to show that we can honour both our profession and our femininity while supporting a cause that matters.”

Ms Sonja de Mari, chief executive of Breast Cancer Cure, said the organisation was thrilled to be part of the collaboration.

“Campaigns like this bring us one step closer to more precise prevention, earlier diagnosis and better outcomes for women in New Zealand,” she added.

Fire departments across the world have been churning out calendars featuring their hunkiest firefighters since the 1990s.

But it was not until 1993 that calendars became part of pop culture, when a group of Australian firefighters – with their bulging muscles and toned abs – posed half-naked to raise money for a children’s hospital in Brisbane.

An all-women firefighters’ calendar did not emerge till 2017, when the Fire Department of New York came up with separate men’s-only and women’s-only editions of its calendar.