photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Jasmin Ramirez is pictured at Fire Station 1, 746 Kentucky St., on June 13, 2023.

What happens when firefighters and police officers glove up and square off in the boxing ring? Quite a bit, it turns out, but most importantly they raise thousands of dollars for charity.

Four Lawrence firefighters will be doing just that on June 24 as they compete in nearly half of the fights scheduled for the Kansas City Guns and Hoses charity boxing event. The charity’s primary beneficiary is Surviving Spouse and Family Endowment Fund, also known as SAFE, which provides immediate assistance to families of first responders who die or are seriously injured on duty.

No local police officers will be taking part in this year’s bout, but the Journal-World spoke with the firefighters recently not only about what drew them to the “sweet science” of boxing but also what led them to their careers as first responders.

Jasmin Ramirez: Firefighter and paramedic assigned to Station 1

Age: 24 Height: 5 feet 2 inches, Weight: 140 pounds

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Jasmin Ramirez is pictured in the locker room at Fire Station 1, 746 Kentucky St., on June 13, 2023.

Firefighter Jasmin Ramirez may be the youngest of the four first responders to enter the ring, but she has been involved in the Lawrence firefighting scene since she was 14 and started thinking about saving people’s homes even earlier than that.

“When I was 11 my house caught on fire. I literally just got off of the school bus and I saw flames at my house. All the trucks were there and they were helping my grandma get out. That just inspired me. That’s what motivated me to do this job,” Ramirez said.

A few years later, at age 14, Ramirez joined the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Explorers program, which introduces young Douglas County residents to fire and medical training.

“We would literally just do everything that the firefighters would do. We would go out and do water rescues, rappelling, just training in the everyday basics,” Ramirez said.

She was with the program until she began volunteering with Wakarusa Township, now Consolidated Fire District One, at age 18. Two years ago she started full time with LDCFM after finishing paramedic school. Ramirez is also bilingual, with Spanish as her first language, and that skill has been invaluable in many interactions with Lawrence residents.

Ramirez said she has been interested in boxing for a few years, and the Guns and Hoses event was a great excuse to throw herself into the training.

“I feel like I’ve never been brave enough to actually go for it. So, this motivated me, and what better thing to do for a charity?” Ramirez said.

Ramirez has increased her running regimen and has added jump rope to her regular workouts.

“Usually, I would just run like three to five miles. Now, I am trying to do like five to eight. Holy cow. Yeah. Jump roping was really hard at first; I could not get it but now it’s like, ‘I’m good,'” Ramirez said.

Both of Ramirez’s families, the “family” at the firehouse and the one at home, support her choice to enter the boxing ring and say they’ll be attending her match. Though if her mother had anything to say about Ramirez fighting fires, or fighting people, she would prefer that she do neither, Ramirez said.

The boxing training has improved Ramirez’s ability to work as a firefighter by increasing her stamina and strength, she said. While fighting fires in full bunker gear gets hot, she said she still sweats more when training for the match.

Ramirez said that after her traumatic experience as a child she has been determined to be in a position to help people and to try to prevent the worst from happening.

“That’s why I started lifting (weights) at a young age. I never want to be weak. I want to keep up or be better, do better, for everybody, not just for myself. Like, ‘I need to get that person out or I need to be physically fit’ and I believe I am,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez said one thing that fire calls and a boxing match have in common is they get your blood flowing.

“They both get your adrenaline going. And, honestly, I just want to perform well, and I will put my everything in both situations,” Ramirez said.

Jacob Gardner: Firefighter and paramedic assigned to Station 5

Age: 32 Height: 5 feet 10 inches, Weight: 250 pounds

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Jacob Gardner is pictured on June 14, 2023, at Fire Station 5, 1911 Stewart Ave.

Firefighter Jacob Gardner turned in his Army fatigues for bunker gear. After eight years in the Army National Guard as an artillery officer he was facing a decade of administrative work before he might get a battalion command, and he didn’t want to spend his days sitting at a desk.

“I primarily worked with the Paladin, which is a mobile artillery unit. It kind of looks like a tank but is able to accurately shoot about eight or nine miles,” Gardner said.

He said he was contemplating what to do next, put together a list of things he liked about the Army and looked for a job that fit. He ended up joining LDCFM a little over two years ago.

“The things that I liked about the Army were that it’s very physically challenging and there’s a strong sense of training and a continuing need for improvement and then a sense of community and a brotherhood with the people that you work with,” Gardner said.

What Gardner didn’t like about the Army is that he was frequently away from his family. Firefighting offered most of the benefits of the Army, but he could stay in one place.

“It just made firefighting the right decision for me,” Gardner said.

Training for a fight is nothing new to Gardner, he said, as he has been training in some form of martial arts for nearly 20 years.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Jacob Gardner is pictured on June 14, 2023, at Fire Station 5, 1911 Stewart Ave.

“The style that I originally studied was fairly similar to Taekwondo. A lot of kicking and jumping, but after that, I moved to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which I’ve continued to study. I’ve also trained in Muay Thai, Krav Maga and Wing Chun. Every year or so, I’ll try something new to see if there’s something else and that I enjoy,” Gardner said.

He started training in boxing for the Guns and Hoses event in January, and when he is not in the gym he is watching matches of his favorite boxers and fighters.

“The thing I like most about Mike Tyson is his strong head movement, and he has a very aggressive fighting style. … Floyd Patterson was a little bit more technical, but still had a similar style. … both were trained by Cus D’Amato … and Jack Dempsey, despite the fact that he was on the smaller side, he was still able to box in a very aggressive way. And so I’ve tried to learn from as many different avenues as I could,” Gardner said.

He is looking forward to fighting in the event to help raise charitable funds.

“This is something that’s a pretty big event, and I think it’s going to be very helpful for a lot of people. Plus, you get to see 20 firefighters and cops fight each other, which I think is the big appeal. Watching different public service departments get a chance to slug it out,” Gardner said.

Gardner said that boxing and firefighting demand a lot of the body and the mind.

“Firefighting and boxing are very physically challenging activities. You could say they take not only a lot of endurance and strength, but you also still have to be able to think in a tactical sense. You have to know what you’re doing and what your plan is. In boxing you have to know your opponent, but in firefighting it’s the fire itself you have to know and what it’s about to do,” Gardner said.

Jose Rodriquez: Engineer and advanced EMT assigned to Station 5

Age: 27 Height: 6 feet 2 inches, Weight: 225 pounds

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Jose Rodriquez is pictured on June 14, 2023, at Fire Station 5, 1911 Stewart Ave.

Firefighter Jose Rodriquez can’t believe he gets paid to help people and to train to combat disasters. Like Jasmin, he started his firefighting career as an LDCFM Explorer at age 20 and volunteered for two years with Wakarusa Township before joining LDCFM full time in 2019.

After graduating from high school, Rodriquez was juggling two jobs and living with his mom before he decided to enroll in a program at Johnson County Community College.

“I picked something that seemed relatively interesting and went with the EMR (Emergency Medical Response) class, which is the first step, and then you have to go to EMT, and then it just kind of snowballed into the firefighter route,” Rodriquez said.

He said he loves the life experiences that he gets on the job.

“It’s kind of weird that you get paid to go do cool stuff all the time. They’ll pay you to go trainings. I went to this place in Salina (Kansas) earlier this year, like a ‘crisis city,’ and they just kind of have this big rubble pile and they just give a bunch of cool tools and just kind of let you go out and train,” Rodriquez said.

This is Rodriquez’s second Guns and Hoses event. His first was in 2021. He said he wanted to try boxing because it sounded fun and because he is a fan of Mike Tyson.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Jose Rodriquez trains for a boxing match on June 13, 2023, at The Underground Lab in Lawrence.

“Mike Tyson … In his prime, he just knocked everybody out in the first round. Everybody was watching Mike Tyson fights. I think that his persona he had back then just appeals to me,” Rodriquez said.

The Guns and Hoses event also helps to push Rodriquez out of his comfort zone.

“I’m usually a pretty reserved person,” he said. “Getting out in front of people is not my favorite thing to do, but it’s a good thing in the long run,” he said.

Rodriquez has been training for the match at Animal Kingdom inside the Underground Lab at 919 E. 29th St. in Lawrence. The operator of Animal Kingdom, Daniel Barajas, provides boxers participating in the Guns and Hoses event weekly lessons and gym membership at no cost.

Rodriquez, comparing boxing to firefighting, pointed to the trait of adaptability.

“You always have a plan in your head (when boxing) about what you’re going to do, and then you stuff happens. You just have to adapt and overcome it. Figure it out as you go. The same thing with firefighting. You have in your mind what’s going to be … a cookie cutter house fire scenario and then something, some wrench, gets thrown in it, and you just have to adapt and overcome it and act like you knew that was coming the whole time,” Rodriquez said.

Baylee Brewer: Engineer and Advanced EMT assigned to Station 3

Age: 32 Height: 5 feet 7 inches, Weight: 180 pounds

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Baylee Brewer is pictured on June 12, 2023, at The Underground Lab in Lawrence.

Firefighter Baylee Brewer thought she might become a photographer in college, but now she drives a Quint, a large firefighting apparatus with a ladder.

“I went to college for photography, actually at K-State, and then I was like, this is silly, art can’t be taught, and then I came home, and my mom was like, ‘What are you going to do?'” Brewer said.

She thought she wanted to go into the medical field but didn’t want to commit to “100 years” in school when her mom suggested that she volunteer for her local Eudora Fire Department.

“I laughed at her. OK, yeah, I’ll volunteer for the fire department. Right. And then she’s like, ‘No, really, they take mostly medical calls. It’s a way to get your foot in the door’… I’m so glad that she suggested I do that even though it sounded, at the time, like the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard,” Brewer said.

She volunteered with Eudora Fire for about three years, starting in 2016, before joining LDCFM. Brewer said that despite the stresses and dangers of the job, she finds the work to be fun and diverse.

“Obviously everybody doesn’t have an appreciation for finding those really stressful and sometimes very scary situations fun, but just the type of work we do, it can be so unusual and uncommon. I just think it’s really fun. And then also, you get to be helping people at the same time,” Brewer said.

She has been interested in the Guns and Hoses event for a number of years but only recently decided to try out. She finally made the decision when good friend and fellow firefighter Jasmin Ramirez said she was doing it.

“She texted me one day, ‘I did it. I signed up,’ and I was like, ‘OK.’ I got on and I signed up … It was that final push I needed. I’m going to go through this with someone that I really care about, and you can just do it together,” Brewer said.

Brewer is the only one of the fighters this year who has established a nickname: Baylee “The Bully” Brewer. She said the name was given to her by a former supervisor as a kind of joke.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Firefighter Baylee Brewer trains for a boxing match on June 12, 2023, at The Underground Lab in Lawrence.

“I know he wasn’t serious, but it was just hilarious,” Brewer said.

Joking with fellow crew members is just a part of the camaraderie she feels working as a firefighter, Brewer said.

“I already knew that my coworkers were all very supportive, but with us having four people try out for the event and all four of LDCFM members getting matches, it’s very exciting. This is when it really shines. I feel like we’re a bunch of tenacious people who work very hard,” Brewer said.

Brewer likened the focus it takes for a firefighter to be in a crisis to that of a boxer in the ring.

“You need to be task oriented and focus on what you’re doing, despite how uncomfortable you may be feeling physically. A fire doesn’t care if your legs are tired. (Coach) Daniel doesn’t care if your legs are tired. You just got to keep pushing through it and be able to tune out that uncomfortableness in order to stay focused on what you need to be doing and what’s happening around you,” Brewer said.

In total, 10 boxing matches will pit area firefighters against police officers. Tickets are available at Tickemaster.com for $25, and sponsorships and VIP packages can be purchased at www.kc-crime.org. The event is on June 24 at Municipal Auditorium, 301 W. 13th St., Kansas City, Missouri.