According to the Smithers Fire Rescue fire chief, some new hires and recent organizational restructuring has the department in a great spot.
The fire department now has two deputy fire chiefs, to work alongside the chief. Previously, it was a deputy and an assistant.
The assistant chief reported to the deputy chief, and then the deputy chief reported to the fire chief. Fire Chief Alle Jan de Vries said the reorganization has made things smoother.
He is proud of their provincial reputation and ongoing efforts to improve training and response capabilities.
De Vries has been with Smithers Fire Rescue since 2013 and was deputy chief for almost three years before being promoted to the top job late last year.
Previous to that, he worked for Raven Rescue after making a move up north from Squamish for a more affordable lifestyle.
The rescue side of things was always a passion for him, before structural firefighting was on his radar.
Now, he can combine the two and is enjoying being chief.
“It's been great so far, and being able to fill out the management team here with the deputy chiefs has been a great step,” he said. “And then, as well, just working with the crew. Some of our firefighters have been with us for over 40 years, and some have been with us for four months. Keeping the senior people engaged, and getting the new people trained, it's always an interesting balance.”
One of his most recent hires is Sean Rowell, who went from being a lawyer to deputy fire chief last month.
He was volunteering with the fire department for 18 years while also a partner in a law firm.
Rowell said he feels the roles are similar, and it is all about the people.
“They're both pretty high-stress, high-paced environments, so being able to work with a team in both of those roles, it's not that different. It feels different. But really, when you get down to it, it's about people and people performance.”
He has always been a part of both worlds. Even in law school, he was a wildland firefighter. But he is now hanging up his robes to focus on just being a part of the fire department.
“It was sort of waking up and realizing where my passion was, where I wanted to be, and where I thought I could make a bit of a difference,” Rowell said. “There was an opening here that seemed to meet everything that I've worked towards. I'm really passionate about coaching people, I am a volunteer coach in my spare time, and this felt like just fitting into that.”
The other deputy fire chief is also head of the local Emergency Support Services, and also able to blend his passions into one job.
Matt Herzog was living in the Yukon, where he went to pursue a different career path that didn’t work out. Then he made a serendipitous trip to Smithers. He started working at a ski shop and was hoping to volunteer with the ambulance service because he had some previous experience in that area.
However, the service didn’t take volunteers and they sent him over to the fire department. That was 15 years ago. In 2021, he started off as the assistant chief and then, in 2024, became the deputy chief for planning and prevention.
He agreed with Rowell and de Vries that it is the people who make the job great.
“Going on the calls and everything is really great, but the relationships that we get to develop and foster and train new people is what I think I love the most,” he said.
“I get to work with 40-plus firefighters here, and then I have another 40 volunteers with the Emergency Support Services program. I get to have a really diverse relationship with people, and then develop response capacity regionally, so for the fire department within our community here, and then with emergency support services, developing that regional response capacity with partners across the province. With emergency support services, now we can do a lot of stuff remotely with the air program, so we can support evacuees from all over British Columbia, so we do a lot of that here.”
He also noted that the fire department is well-rounded, lucky to have three chiefs and a diverse volunteer group of firefighters. He said there are some pros to having a volunteer department, over a career department fully staffed with professional firefighters.
“We have some very technical people. We have plumbers and electricians, engineers, we've got all kinds of people in the department to help us strategize and make solutions to calls," Herzog said.
"Recently, we were on a call, that was very tactical and complex, and between everyone on the call, we all had different ideas that we could put together to complete this very complicated extrication that we needed to do. So we had some people that were really concentrating doing the medical part, and we had people that were engineers and very good at just being knick-knacky, and we were able to put together a really safe and unique way to extricate somebody.”
De Vries added that is a huge part of what he loves about the department.
“One of the things I would say that gives me pride in this department and that I'm really proud of, is how well the fire department and ESS are both regarded provincially. When I talk to people and tell them I'm from Smithers, often people have good things to say about their interactions, whether it is due to response where we've deployed to other locations or even where other outside providers have come in and offered us training. This is me standing on the shoulders of all those who came before me, but I can't really claim any of it, or a huge amount of it, it's just historically Smithers Fire, and our ESS, which is in its current model are both regarded very well around the province from other organizations, which gives me a ton of pride.”
Going into forest fire season, having that good provincial reputation will benefit Smithers and the surrounding area.
Smithers Fire Rescue has sent crews around British Columbia over the years, something Rowell said will help the community in the future.
“If that ever happens, a situation comes to our door, we'll have had experience helping others deal with it. And every time we go, other crews from across the province are coming, and they're bringing their ideas and going, this is what works for us, this helped us. And we're picking up on those things, we're trying those things, we're seeing, if they work for us as well,” he said. “We're going to be better because the folks around us are better, and we're going to be better because we've made those efforts.”
