Female recruits may have concerns about motherhood and family before applying for the job but the department hires capable people 'regardless of their gender', says Director of Fire Services Joe Kwok Jing-keung.

The only criterion applicants must meet is having perfect eyesight; there are no height or weight requirements. At the same time, 'we don't relax our threshold for women; they are treated as men in our department', Kwok says.

That means female recruits, who are often smaller, may have difficulty passing the physical test, or performing duties 'that require a lot of heavy lifting and hard physical labour'. The department's rigorous selection process begins with 50 20-metre runs; climbing a ladder; squatting for 30 seconds, and a minute's bent-knee sit-ups. The recruits' six-month intensive job training is even tougher, with daily physical workouts and regular fire drills in 10kg of protective gear and an oxygen cylinder on their backs, Kwok says.

But 'physical fitness isn't enough' to rise through the ranks, Kwok says. 'We need station officers to have calmness and leadership.'

A station officer is always the first firefighter to enter a fire or rescue scene, assess it and decide on the quickest and safest response, Kwok says. 'It's more to do with a person's risk management and leadership than his or her gender.'

Wu has managed her fair share of risks. Fit and tall at 1.78 metres, she's a similar size to the other eight women firefighters. And she shares their view that carrying injured people from a car crash or rubble is easy. 'I was asked to do this quite often in the first few years at work,' Wu says. 'There's no big deal about women fire officers doing men's jobs. I've been mistaken for a man a few times when I'm in protective gear,' Wu says.

At one blaze, a young female admirer called her 'handsome', she says. 'I felt a bit odd but chose not to clarify my gender. It would be cruel to burst the bubble of her fantasy.'

The female firefighters have had their share of scares and encounters with tragedy, especially veterans such as Wu.

Ask Wu about the Garley Building fire of November 20, 1996, and her face darkens although she remains matter-of-fact about the 21-hour blaze in Yau Ma Tei in which 41 people died and 80 were injured.

'When I was taking over the scene from colleagues from another team, they looked exhausted and their eyes were teary,' she says. 'The upper floors of the building had become an inferno and one of our colleagues was killed. I was instructed to extinguish the smaller fires on the lower floors and to check if anyone was still trapped.'

The inside of the building was dark, smoky and empty, and the situation appalling, Wu recalls.

'I have been putting out many fires, big and small,' she says. 'But it was the first time I felt frustrated and had no sense of achievement. My team and I worked at the site for more than 10 hours until the next morning.'

Another veteran, senior station officer Vivian Chan Wai-man, recalls narrowly escaping death five years ago while battling a blaze in a dilapidated flat in Sheung Wan.

Chan was leading a four-person team into the building when heavy smoke and darkness separated her from her colleagues.

'I had only 10 minutes' supply of oxygen left but couldn't find my way out,' she says. 'So I turned off all gadgets that might distract me, such as the walkie-talkie, and concentrated on finding my way out. It's a knack I learned from my [scuba] diving classes.'

She finally spotted a dim light in the gloom and got out before her oxygen ran out.

A former Cathay Pacific flight attendant who joined the service in 1995, Chan says the two jobs share similar characteristics of serving people and being ready to handle any catastrophe.

Even so, her female colleagues concede it's sometimes hard to be a woman in the fire service. There's greater pressure to maintain high levels of performance.

'Our male colleagues are all trained to follow their leaders, whether they're men or women,' Wu says. 'But out of the 6,000 firefighters, we are the minority and draw a lot of attention. Word would spread quickly if we didn't do well.'

Pregnant firefighters are assigned to an office job but new mums must work hard to regain fitness if they want to return to frontline work, says senior station officer Theresa Lam Chun-sai, the mother of a four-year-old girl.

'After giving birth, we have to double or triple our time and effort in order to be fit enough to pass the department's annual physical assessment,' says the Kowloon Tong-based firefighter. 'It is a lot of hard work to regain fitness after being in a clerical post for 10 months. It's one of the extra hardships that men would never come across or understand.'

Even trivial station routines such as taking a shower can add pressure to a female firefighter's shift, says Wu.

'I pray before every shower that the alarm bell won't sound before I'm done,' she says. But just in case the crews are called out, Wu keeps a top and briefs handy in the shower stall. That way, she can slide down the station pole and get to the fire engine within the required 30 seconds and don her uniform and gear en route.

Senior station officer Sarah Lam So-wah is unlikely to hop off to work so quickly; she's eight months pregnant. She says she faced even greater disruptions when she and her fiance delayed their marriage after she joined the department seven years ago.

'We queued up outside the Marriage Registration Office for several nights [to book] an auspicious day,' says Lam, who now leads a team in the service's recruitment, training and examination section. 'We were supposed to marry on December 3 but I received notice to attend training the very next day. So, we made a last-minute decision to cancel the registration and wedding banquet.'

Lam tied the knot two years later after she'd settled into her job. But the female firefighters reckon their job is worth the hassles. They get great satisfaction from helping to safeguard the community, says Wu, who is attached to the Fire Services Training School.

'We also share something similar in our personality - a willingness to take on challenges of any kind and to overcome barriers.'