Emergency Management & Fire Chief of Rocky View County, Randy Smith has been a firefighter for over four decades, but at the end of this year, his four decades of firefighting service will come to a close. 

Fire Chief Smith, who initially had longed to become a paramedic said that it was both opportunity and a bit of fate that brought him to choose the fire service all those years ago. When he arrived in Fort McMurray, he like many young men was looking to be gainfully employed and at that time, ambulance services were run out of the fire department.

"I was able to fulfill that need or want to become a paramedic, but I also wanted that excitement as a young man and firefighting is exciting. It's a great vocation to go into, there is lots to learn and I've enjoyed it thoroughly," he said. "It's kind of funny how we impact others in our lives; my brother-in-law, who is younger than me, saw me go into the fire department. He went into the fire department, my sister-in-law became a Calgary paramedic." 

However, he would travel even further North into the Northwest Territories as a firefighter to become Fire Chief in Iqaluit, where he would work for several years before moving to British Columbia where he was also a Fire Chief and emergency management coordinator. While he also had a short stint in Ontario, where Smith hails from, when the opportunity came to settle down, he chose to come back to Alberta and would enter the ranks of the Rocky View County Fire Service in 2014. 

As Fire Chief Smith reflects on the beginnings of his career, he has also been reflecting on how firefighting has changed, especially in the area of fire prevention. Fire Prevention Week which started on Sunday, October 9 and will run till October 15 and this year's slogan is Fire won’t wait, plan your escape. It is also the 100th anniversary of the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) Fire Prevention Week.

Chief Smith says that since his early years as a firefighter till today, much more attention and funding has been put towards fire prevention, although the core ethos of fire prevention week has always rung the same. 

"We've been teaching home escape plans to kids forever, it seems, but those messages: check your smoke alarm, have an escape plan, plan with your family and have that conversation, those messages are the same because the problem is the same. You could have a fire station on every corner and it's not going to have the impact that having a fire safety plan in your home will have."

Smith said that one of the reasons firefighters interact with school-aged children during fire safety week is because kids are very keen to share what they've learnt with their parents, which starts a conversation at home. Chief Smith said that while he has been to both large-scale and small-scale incidents in his career the most ingrained and memorable calls all have one thing in common.

"When we see the devastation that a fire can create to people's lives, even if nobody is injured; just imagine, everything you own destroyed and that's devastating to people," Smith said. "We feel that as responders, we not only [feel] the loss of people have, but there's great empathy. I think I'm probably speaking for the fire service, in general, we're in to give back to the community. We're in it to protect our community members."

Smith underlined that this is why the fire prevention message is so crucial because pre-emptive planning allows residents to help themselves. He added that anytime firefighters are called to a structure fire, the biggest fear and the biggest question the public has if everyone has evacuated safely.

"We get there and you have a big fire and as soon as you know that everybody's out, there's a huge sigh of relief. Then we can get down to the business of putting the fire out. No two fire scenes are the same. It's a different workplace every day."

When asked what skills his successor will need to possess, Fire Chief Smith said that being a Fire Chief is not unlike other managerial roles.

"Rockyview County has awesome staff; they're phenomenal, but because we are a regional fire service, we're spread out and you don't see your staff that often," he said. "If I had words of wisdom for somebody coming in, it would be to lean on your staff; in working together [with staff] the next person will be able to take this fire department to the next level, I have no doubt."

Though he has quite a few weeks before he retires, Fire Chief Smith did not hide the fact that there will be elements he will miss. 

"Rockyview County is the largest fire department that I've worked in. We have 24 full-time firefighters, 140 part-time firefighters and another 130 volunteers. It's a large, large organization, and I'll miss the people."

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