Station 18 was originally conceived during the seventies when it was still difficult for women to get a foothold in certain professions. At that time, the portrayal of women on television was pretty bad. This was true even on Emergency! With the exception of Dixie, female characters were either bimbos or battleaxes and that really bugged me. At that time, the city where I was living was considering forming an all female station. It never came to pass but I thought it was an interesting idea and wondered how the characters at Station 51 would react to such a plan. So Station 18 was born (or at least converted to an all female station.)
Since that time, a few other writers have contributed to and expanded the Station 18 Universe. The Station 18 Universe continues to expand as new stories expore the idea of women in a man's world. Some of these stories will be as much about exploring the concept of an all female station and the obstacles and prejudices faced by the first women on the job as they will be about the guys at Station 51. On occasion, since the Station 18 characters are still being developed, a story will actually star these characters and the Station 51 characters will be in minor roles or possibly not appear at all. Those stories will be mainly for Station 18 fans who are clamoring for more stories about these characters and will be posted directly to this page. Generally speaking though, most new stories will also appear on the Logbook page at KMG 365. All new stories will be announcd on the What's New section of the main page so you won't miss anything.
While there never was an all female fire station in LA county in the 70's, I have learned that there were three all female fire stations in what would later become LA County in the 1910-1920s. Also, since posting these stories I have heard about five other all female stations. Most were volunteer stations, some were born out of necessity during wartime but all were staffed by women who did the job as well as their male counterparts. For other information about female firefighters check out the links below.
As these are stories that involve original characters whose lives and destinies have been carefully planned by their creators, this page is not open to general submission and will continue to be staff written only.
National Organization of Women