Team 182: volunteer firefighters at the Rallye

With their fire truck, Séverine and Amélie do not go unnoticed at this 29th edition of the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc. Meet the members of this truck team, who are taking part in the event for the first time

It all started with a dare

“One day, at the end of 2017, I said to Séverine that I dreamed of doing the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc and she said, “dare you”. One week later, we were registered. It was a challenge at the time. And I couldn’t see myself doing it with anyone else. But we’re babies at this rally.” Their objective is simple: they want to have fun, and… “We’re a bit competitive so we’re setting ourselves goals as we go along. We’re testing ourselves as well!”

“It’s like our teacher”

For their first Rallye, the two colleagues chose to compete with an impressive vehicle that represents them well: “we find it beautiful, this fire truck, and it’s important to us because it has a history. It comes from a small fire hall in Gard and it was retired because it had a hole in the water tank. Often these trucks are auctioned off. This time, they agreed to give it to us.” Every day, they learn from their truck: “It’s like our teacher, it has good capabilities, we can trust it. But when it says no, it’s no. We have shovelled less than other vehicles, but we can’t go everywhere” states Amélie.

A complementary team

They change drivers at every checkpoint. “We want to be versatile. We don’t want to be bored and, above all, we don’t like everything to be predefined,” explains Séverine, a professional beekeeper. “I try to think about what she wants, to communicate as much as possible, to make sure we ask questions together.” Séverine is hypersensitive, and when we talk about her children enfants, her eyes mist over, while Amélie is “like the wild one of the team.”

Rallying for orphans of firefighters

Like many other Gazelles, Séverine and Amélie chose to support a cause: orphans of firefighters. They called their association: “Les Roll Over”, after a smoke phenomenon that occurs during a structure fire. “What’s great about this association and this adventure is all the support we’ve had. Without that, we wouldn’t be here. Our families give us the strength to keep going…”