Sofia Kosacheva
Russian forest firefighter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sofia Kosacheva is a Russian forest firefighter. She founded a professional community dedicated to training volunteer firefighters to deal with large forest fires.[1][2] In 2023, she was named as one of the BBC's 100 Women of the year. She and activist Daria Serenko are the only two Russians to appear on the BBC's 2023 list.[3]
Throughout her career as a firefighter, she has helped to stop hundreds of fires. She also collaborated with Greenpeace, until the Kremlin labeled it as an "undesirable organization", and its Russian branch was dismantled.[3] Before she worked as a forest firefighter, she was an opera teacher. In 2010, meeting a group of firefighters inspired her to quit her job and train as a firefighter.[4][5]