No, it's not some new firefighter hazing. The Sauk Centre Fire Department — a 30 member all-volunteer firefighting crew — was fundraising at a St. Patrick's Day parade, dressed in drag to entertain the crowd — because, you know, pretending to be women is funny. When the fire began to spread, they hitched up their dresses and fought it.
Although one would assume it's dangerous to try and extinguish a fire without all the right gear, but with the fire spreading from their truck to a nearby SUV, the volunteers could not wait the 15 minutes for the nearest emergency crew to arrive.
According to bystander Paul Streitz, who caught the action on camera, on his Facebook page:
Hey lets put this in to perspective.. The Sudan [sic] Volunteer fire department was in Padua to do community service for the parade a fire brakes out and if they were to say lets wait for the fire department that is assigned to this area to get here (15miles away) because we are not in proper gear what would people say? They were in line for the parade 300 yards away and in my opinion did an amazing job.. If anything we should be thankful for the work they did.
And dresses be damned, they put out the fire.
(Hat tip to $kaycog!)