Now the couple serve alongside each other in the Dunsandel Volunteer Fire Brigade, and are planning to get married after a proposal that could have ended in a fire callout.
“We pretty much live and breathe fire brigade really, it’s a huge commitment that we both love,” Pierce said.
The couple met following a game of Tinder roulette in 2018. Pierce was celebrating completing her firefighter recruitment training in Christchurch when her friends swiped right on Bain’s profile, impressed by one of his shots in firefighting gear.
The Dunsandel firefighter got in touch with Pierce the next day, impressed by the fact she was also a firefighter.
Their romance blossomed and the following year they moved in together after Pierce transferred from the Pleasant Point brigade to the Dunsandel brigade.
On Christmas Eve last year, Bain proposed to Pierce at their home as she was making russian fudge.
“I just asked her to close her eyes and turn around and that was about it,” Bain said.
He told her he had bought a ring, and “after she stopped crying” asked her to marry him.
“I cried, I was so, so excited, I was so over the moon,” Pierce said.
She phoned her mother and sister to let them know, and forgot about the pot on the stove to the point that the smell of burning sugar emanated through the kitchen.
Pierce said the irony of two firefighters burning something on the stove would not have been lost on their fellow Dunsandel brigade members if it had of resulted in a fire.
“If they saw our address pop up for a call-out they would be laughing, and it would be a big shout for us,” Pierce said.
The couple are planning on getting married next year. In the meantime they are enjoying supporting each other in their volunteer roles.
“We kind of just bounce off each other, so we work very well together. We can have some really horrendous calls and it just makes us stronger,” Pierce said.
They benefitted from each other’s strengths, with Pierce’s profession as a nurse providing a solid first aid background and complementing Bain’s firefighting skills gained from serving as a firefighter in Australia.
The couple were apart for seven-and-a-half weeks in 2020 as Pierce worked on a Covid unit. Due to isolation requirements, she could not go to fire calls.
“That was hard, but it probably made us a lot stronger,” Pierce said.
