Hail to the (fire) chief
Bob Haddow has been in command of the Okanagan Falls Volunteer Fire Department since 1967, a very rare achievement in the profession
When he assumed command of the Okanagan Falls Volunteer Fire Department back in 1967, Bob Haddow and his dozen men wore canvas uniforms and beat back blazes with a 30-year-old pumper truck that carried 200 litres of water.
“What we have now to what we had then is just incredible,” Haddow said at a community gathering Sunday at the Royal Canadian Legion staged to celebrate his unprecedented five decades on the job.
“It’s just tremendous change over the years.”
Today’s departm ent boasts 30 members who have access to five pieces of equipment.
But even their modern gear and manpower wasn’t enough to crush the 2003 wildfire near Vaseux Lake, a blaze that grew to 3,300 hectares, had 1,200 people on evacuation alert for two weeks and required the collective effort of 700 firefighters, including members of
What we have now to what we had then is just incredible. It’s just tremendous change over the years. Fire chief Bob Haddow
the Canadian Forces, to douse.
Haddow counts those weeks as the scariest times of his career. The best times, he continued, occur on a regular basis while catching up with former members of the department whom he helped train in life and firefighting.
“When they come back and say thanks, it just builds you up,” said Haddow.
Training was a recurring theme among speakers at Sunday’s celebration, in particular the emphasis Haddow places on keeping his people ready and getting them home safe.
“You have to be prepared when you go, and that’s what you have to try to get across: Do the right thing and don’t be going off on your own and doing things you don’t know,” he explained.
Another theme that emerged was the seemingly unmatched length of Haddow’s tenure.
“We get the odd guy who will make 50 years in the fire service, but to be a fire chief for that long, we’ve never heard of it before. It’s got to be a landmark,” said Bob Stevens, president of the Volunteer Firefighters Association of B.C.
“Guys just don’t last that long. Usually by the time they get into that position, they’re kind of old to start with, they’ve had to work their way up the ranks.”
In decades past, Stevens explained, the job of fire chief went to whoever volunteered to do it.
“You learned by hard knocks. But nowadays, you need letters behind your names, qualifications, certifications, and you don’t get that until you’re much later in your career,” he said.
The fact that Haddow has been able to stay current for 50 years is also worth celebrating, according to the chief administrative officer of the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen.
“It takes a very dedicated individual to make sure that they keep up with all of that type of change, and, especially from a chief’s point of view, it’s a very litigious business these days — we can’t make mistakes,” said Bill Newell, whose organization has oversight of Haddow’s department and six others like it.
“Our citizens expect a very professional response when they call a fire department, and I know, because I’ve used them myself, that the Okanagan Falls Fire Department fits that to a T.”