The Female Firefighters Turning Up The Heat For A Good Cause
We’ve all seen our fair share of hot firefighter calendars: buff men without a shirt on, oiled up, possibly holding a puppy. It’s a market that’s been pretty much cornered for a while now- until a group of female firies in Aotearoa broke the internet with their own interpretation.
Featuring 13 firefighters from nine stations across three cities, the 2026 Wahine Toa Firefighter Calendar is taking a page from the boys’ book and stripping down for charity.
Organisers Nicole Koch and Zoe Feau came up with the idea when they were on a shift together.
We were like ‘why isn’t there a woman’s one?’ So we’re just like, ‘maybe we should just make one ourselves and how hard could it be?’ And then it just went from there,” Koch said on morning talk show Breakfast.
“I honestly don’t know what happened, I just feel like we had this idea and then bam, all of a sudden we were making it. It was outrageous.”
The proceeds from the 13-month calendar will be going towards Breast Cancer Cure, supporting research towards the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
“And a few of the girls from the calendar and throughout firefighting have had close connections with breast cancer, it just felt really fitting,” Feau said.
View this post on Instagram
Honouring “both our profession and our femininity”
Koch and Feau said that in the months of planning, there was a question of how to execute the calendar with the right tone- something sexy, but not too objectifying.
“For a long time, the question was how to celebrate strength and femininity without being oversexualised,” Koch told Aotearoa- based publication Stuff.
“Now feels like the right time to show that we can honour both our profession and our femininity while supporting a cause that matters.”
In an Instagram post on Wednesday 29 October, the girls announced that they were absolutely blown away by the response, and that in a little over 24 hours, they’d already met their target donation of $100,000.
“We clearly grossly underestimated how popular our calendars would be and for that we apologise. Fret not, firefighters always have a plan B! Wipe up those tears and have no fears, because PREORDERS are now!”
The calendar’s explosive popularity has seen it given a second run, open for another two weeks until November 10, aiming to get to buyers’ doors by the end of the month so everyone can soak up the December cover girl.
“Same fire. Same cause. Same unstoppable community.”
Make some space on the wall and get your very own Wahine Toa Firefighter Calendar here– we know you want to.
You May Also Like
