After 40 years in the fire service, Smithers Fire Chief Kelly Zacharias is hanging up his helmet.
Being a firefighter was always his dream and in his blood. When he was young, his dad was a volunteer firefighter and as soon as he was old enough, he also joined the volunteer department in Fort St James.
After a taking a job and moving to Smithers, he volunteered with the Smithers Fire Rescue service.
He worked his way up to a captain in the volunteer fire department. In 2004, he started his professional career in the department as a deputy fire chief and airport manager for the town.
The airport manager was a combined job with deputy fire chief until 2010. Zacharias then became a full-time deputy chief when the town split the role.
About two years ago, then-Chief Keith Stecko retired from the top position and Zacharias took over. At the time, Stecko said Zacharias was a good fit for the role and a proven leader.
Zacharias said his favourite part about being chief is the camaraderie and the sense of community that the volunteer firefighters have here.
“It’s like a second family, it truly is,” he said. “We work very closely together and in some pretty traumatic situations, and just the relationships that you garner through the service here, it’s great.”
He said another great part of the job is meeting people.
“I’ve met so many great people,” he added. “Like other chiefs, other firefighters from across Canada, because we do a lot of fundraising for Muscular Dystrophy Canada, that’s been our charity of choice. And we’ve raised a lot of money for them, but I’ve met a lot of great people through that as well.”
One of the biggest career highlights for him was becoming chief.
“When I started in it, that wasn’t the aspiration, I just wanted to give back to community and to be involved with a good group of people,” he said. “And then as things progressed, I took more and more courses and then an opportunity arose there, and then I applied for it and was lucky enough to get the job and just went from there. It was just time for a career change.”
Since moving to Smithers, Zacharias has attended a lot of big fires.
He said one of the biggest fires he attended was the one at the Pacific Inland Resources mill in 1993. That fire destroyed one fifth of the site’s lumber, resulting in a loss of $3 million. The blaze, started by sparks from a beehive burner, was the largest ever fire at the mill at the time. It was fought by up to 150 people from Smithers, Telkwa, Moricetown, the airport and the forest service.
“There’s been a lot of big fires,” he recalled. “But the log fire was the longest duration, almost 36 hours. We had helicopters bucketing water onto a lot of decks because it would jump from one deck to the other.”
Zacharias said other big fires burned into his memory are: the fire that destroyed the 80-year-old Bulkley Hotel, also in 1993. As well as the Rice Bowl Restaurant in 2003. That building was destroyed and an electrical fault in the ceiling was determined to be the cause. It took more than 20 firefighters and three hours to get under control.
Another big fire was Hometown Furniture and Perry & Co which burned down on Main St. in 2013.
Most recently, the Smithers Recycling Centre on Tatlow Road burned down in 2019.
Zacharias said one of the challenges of being chief is retaining volunteers.
“We’ve been fairly fortunate there, but recruitment of volunteers in more recent times has become a little more difficult than like we used to have,” he added.
The Smithers Fire Department usually has around 40 volunteers but is down about 5 or 6 and currently recruiting.
Zacharias said he hopes the next fire chief will look after the volunteers.
“The community is so lucky and saves a lot of money tax-wise, by having volunteer firefighters,” he said. “If we went to go total career department, even with minimal manning, that would increase the budget by two and a half to $3 million there with manpower.”
He said he would also encourage the new chief to remain proactive and stay up to date with the most current techniques and advancements in technologies.
“The only constant is change, it seems, and there’s always something more. And it’s not just fires, we go to motor vehicle accidents, we go to a lot of medical calls. Anybody has a bad day, we tend to get a call and we try and help them as best we can.”
Deputy Fire Chief Alle Jan de Vries said working for Zacharias has been a great experience and he said he was disappointed to hear he was moving on.
“Kelly is a detail-oriented person, so it has been great learning about processes and workflow from him,” de Vries said.
“Kelly is willing to make decisions but takes input even if he initially disagrees, which can lead to healthy discussion on a topic to the correct decision is made. Kelly also remembers that there are people involved with decisions he makes and while he still may need to make a hard decision, he makes sure to connect with the people involved to give the why.”
Smithers Mayor Gladys Atrill said, on behalf of council, she would like to offer heartfelt congratulations to him upon his retirement.
“Kelly has put in 40 years as a firefighter, with 35 of those years as a member of the Smithers Fire Department. He has well earned his retirement,” she said.
“Kelly was also our airport manager once upon a time and so has offered his expertise and energy to more than one department of this organization. He has also been recognized for his hard work with Smithers Fire Department in fundraising for Muscular Dystrophy.”
Atrill added that she’ll never forget after she was newly elected to town council, she had the opportunity to participate in a live fire exercise with the rest of council, something she wasn’t sure she wanted to do.
“However as someone new to the job, it felt like the right thing to do. Kelly led the exercise that evening in a calm reassuring way. His voice helped keep my panic under control inside the container as the fire was lit up,” she recalled.
Zacharias will retire at the end of June. The town is currently looking for his replacement.
READ MORE: Smithers Fire Chief Keith Stecko retires
