Firefighter mourned
Hundreds gather in Kelowna to pay tribute to fire captain felled by cancer attributed to occupation
Be present, be grateful, love hard, drink only top-shelf tequila and if you don’t know how to do something, look it up on YouTube.
It seems we can all learn a thing or two from fallen Kelowna firefighter Joe Kolar.
At Capt. Kolar’s ceremonial funeral Friday at Trinity Baptist
Church, his daughter, Taylor, recited a 20-point “Life According to Joe” list for living a full and well-rounded life.
The list was both poignant and humorous, a reflection of Kolar’s zest for life.
In addition to the aforementioned tidbits, the checklist also included strength training three times a week, eating only delicious food prepared with love, always responding with kindness, being humble, and that being vulnerable is admirable. The strength training three times a week was probably added to the list by his wife, Lisa, and their two grown-up daughters, Taylor and Ashley, who are the owners of TWP Fitness.
Kolar died Oct. 31 at the age of 51 after a battle with lung cancer attributed to his 29 years as a firefighter.
That means his passing is classified as a line-ofduty death.
The only other time a firefighter death in the Okanagan has been labelled line of duty was the September 2018 passing of Capt. Troy Russell of West Kelowna Fire Rescue. Russell succumbed to brain cancer contracted through his work as a firefighter.
As such, Kolar’s funeral was both a family and community ceremony, and was accompanied by a line-of-duty death procession.
The procession of hundreds of firefighters, fire trucks and a pipe band started at Mission
Creek Alliance Church and forged 500 metres down Springfield Road to Trinity Baptist Church.
Springfield was closed between Cooper and Spall roads to let the procession pass.
Kolar’s coffin was carried in Kelowna pumper truck No. 10, which was shrouded in black bunting.
The truck, and two other fire trucks, pulled into the parking lot at Trinity Baptist. They were parked while hundreds of uniformed firefighters from throughout the province, RCMP officers, ambulance drivers, bylaw enforcement officers, and search and rescue crews lined up in formation, waiting to enter the church.
After filing inside, the uniformed officers and family filled the lower part of the auditorium and civilians filled the balcony. Combined, the church seats 2,000.
At 1 p.m., the crowd was asked to stand and the coffin, draped in a Canadian flag, was carried in by eight uniformed firefighter pallbearers.
Pastor Phillip Collins, the Kelowna Fire Department’s chaplain, led the crowd in the “Love is patient, love is kind” prayer from the First Book of Corinthians, Chapter 13.
Kelowna fire Chief Travis Whiting then took to the stage to praise Kolar as a skilled firefighter on the technical rescue team, a great teammate and a respected captain.
Whiting ended his remarks with a trade-no-firefighter pledge in reference to Kolar’s line-of-duty death.
“We need to challenge each other to be safe always, physically and mentally,” he said.
When Troy Mamchur, president of the Kelowna Professional Fire Fighters Association, came to the podium, he characterized Kolar as the man many of us aspired to be like.
“I don’t know what it was about him, but everyone came to him for advice. He was wise beyond his years,” said Mamchur. “He gave great parenting advice. But his advice didn’t work for my golf swing.”
Chef Rod Butters of Raudz Regional Table lived in Kolar’s neighbourhood.
“To be honest, I didn’t consider Joe a firefighter, but a friend,” he said.
“The only exception was when I asked his advice about installing a wood-burning pizza oven in my backyard. As a firefighter he said it probably wasn’t a good idea, but as a friend he’d enjoy the pizza.”
A slide show of Kolar’s life depicted him as a devoted firefighter, husband, father and grandfather, doing everything from visiting New York after 9/11, hanging with family and friends, golfing, fishing and zip-lining to hamming it up at the Ogopogo statue downtown, and finishing up with looking positive receiving cancer treatment in the hospital with grandson Porter sitting in his lap.