In 1982, one woman took on the New York City Fire Department in a landmark lawsuit - and won. As a result, women could become firefighters for the first time. Of the few who joined, one woman was knifed, one was beaten up and several received death threats from male firefighters. "Someone had drained my air-tank, and I was in a burning building," recalls one woman firefighter. TAKING THE HEAT is the eye-opening documentary about how these women survived over twenty years in a department that did not want them.