Last time Fiona Knights applied to become an ACT firefighter, it was the dummy drag that thwarted her.
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To make sure the dummy didn't get the best of her this time, she filled her old snowboard bag with sand and dragged it up and down her driveway, over and over, until she could do it with ease.
On Thursday, her hard yards paid off.
Ms Knights was one of 16 new firefighters to graduate the recruit college after an intensive 19-week training program.
Last November, the ACT Government said it would aim to have eight of the 16 places in this year's recruit college filled by women who met the selection criteria.
The recruitment drive resulted in a five-fold increase in the number of women applying and four of the 16 new firefighters are women.
Ms Knights' classmate Danielle Curcio thought she wouldn't make it past the beep test after she injured herself, but pushed through it to also graduate on Thursday.
"Danielle rocked up on crutches to the beep test and she absolutely killed it. All of the instructors were there and thought 'pfft this girl doesn't have a chance' and she just gritted her teeth and made it, nothing was going to stop her. It was so inspirational. The commander actually mentioned to me that they all took note of it and said 'this girl has heart'," Ms Knights said.
Ms Curcio, who was reluctant to share this anecdote with Fairfax Media, said: 'I'd been looking at [becoming a firefighter] for the last four years and I wasn't going to let one little hiccup just before it started waste all that training."
The new crop of firefighters also includes what is believed to be the college's first batch of twins.
Dean Janssen had to grow a moustache during the training program so his classmates could tell him apart from his brother Paul.
"Mum and dad were stoked," Dean said of his acceptance into the recruit college. "I called them to say I'd got in and they were like 'what about Paul' and I said 'he got in too!"
Paul said the trainers had trouble "splitting them" as their test results were so similar.
"Even our final score at school was 0.4 or 0.3 of a difference in UAI," Paul said.
Brendan Ryan expressed his relief at finally becoming a firefighter after being rejected from the program three times.
"I'm a stubborn bastard," he said, when asked why he kept coming back.
"The first few times I was probably a bit too young and inexperienced in life skills. Because I had the experience, I'd been there, done that I knew what to expect this time."
