“I didn’t really put a lot of thought into what I was going to do,” he says. Despite the fact that firefighting had given his cousin a broken back and his uncle waist-down paralysis, Brogan boarded a flight back to Cambridge.

OUT WEST

In the hallway office outside Brogan’s room, Bowden, the rookie, pulls up the sleeves of her CFD-issued sweatshirt, complete with denim patches and labels. She’s already soaked up the rhythm and ritual of the place, though she joined the CFD nearly two decades after her boss.

Growing up in Cambridge, Bowden listened to stories about her grandfather and the horses he used to care for at the Boston Fire Department. But beyond that and a love for the smoky flames and adrenaline, she lacked any connection to that world.

Out of college, Bowden trained rescue dogs before landing a spot as a medic at Professional Ambulance, a private company contracted by CFD. It was a step closer to her dream. On the job, Bowden met veteran firefighters. They told her that if she wanted to have a shot at their jobs, she needed to study—and get herself into a fire or two.

Bowden says that, by the time she became interested in the job, the father-to-son mentality that allowed the same families to serve at CFD from generation to generation had eroded.

Hoping to find flames, she moved west to Montana’s Yellowstone National Park, where she dispersed law enforcement and medical expertise and fought a few fires on patrol. It was a good job, but it came at a cost. She virtually had to give up contact with the world, getting just one day a week to make calls and check mail in town. And every winter, she risked “furlough,” or being temporarily laid-off.

So, on the side, Bowden studied for civil-service exams, poring over study guides and flying across the country to take the state-specific tests. She put many of her hopes in Cambridge. Because she was raised there, she knew she was able to meet CFD’s one-year residency requirement.

In 2004, seven years after first joining Yellowstone, Bowden received a voice mail during one weekly trip into town. CFD had called her over for more testing.

“I finally clawed my way to the top of the list,” she says. But she bought a round-trip plane ticket, knowing she had not yet secured the spot.

GETTING IN

Bowden arrived in Cambridge to be greeted by a barrage of psychological exams and interviews. Then came the Physical Abilities Test, which required Bowden to carry a ladder solo and drag a heavy dummy through a course alongside the other competitors, who she says were mostly men.

She made it through, and snagged an invitation to the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, where she spent 11 grueling weeks in the classroom and in intense training. She didn’t know whether she would make it, watching as others tripped up along the way—like one who, unable to overcome his fear of water for a pool test, was sent packing.

Bowden jumped, and by February, 2005, she and fewer than 20 others joined the ranks. Still, she reminds herself, she and the other newcomers are still firefighters on probation—she shortens it to “FFOP.” They won’t lose the “OP” until this fall.

Bowden has yet to shed her rookie status, but she’s already left behind romantic notions of firefighting. She and her group work 7 a.m.-to-7 a.m. shifts nearly twice a week. Some of her colleagues work a second job on the side to fill their time and supplement the modest pay.

Then, there’s caring for the station, their home. Every morning they clean the toilets and check their equipment, and on off-days they dip into their wallets or neighbors’ front yards for treadmills and televisions.

“There isn’t a couch or a chair that wasn’t pulled out of the trash somewhere,” says Brogan, the lieutenant.

The heart of headquarters is in the kitchen, where an antique stove and constant cable serve the firefighters. Each month the firefighters chip in $8 to pay for the Ritz crackers and peanut butter that stock the kitchen.

Bowden has joined an institution that’s hard to leave. Pension plans tempt veterans to stay on board, and there’s the pride of the hard hat and fire truck. Then there’s the camaraderie built on mutual meals, a shared house, and relying on the next person for your life. It offers something that Bowden might not find in another line of work—a sense of family.

—Staff writer April H.N. Yee can be reached at aprilyee@fas.harvard.edu.