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Thursday, May 27, 2010
It’s all
about the doors. The new fire station in Whitchurch-Stoufville is retiring
Chief Chris Powers’ legacy to the community, and a fine fire station it is –
certainly among the nicest in Canada with a gourmet kitchen, an
enormous community room, a good-sized workout room and dorms for men and women.
But everyone talks about the doors.
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The very unassuming Chief Chris Powers wondered what all the fuss was about yesterday as colleagues celebrated his lengthy and impressive career. Photo by Laura King.
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Powers
was feted yesterday by colleagues and dignitaries, a week before he officially
retires, and even he’s still talking about the doors that he first saw in,
ahem, another fire fighting magazine.
The
four-fold doors, made by Door Engineering & Manufacturing in Kasota, MN, are
hurricane quality, open in a split second (OK, well, four seconds), allow
natural light into the bays. The only maintenance required is an occasional
greasing of the four hinges.
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The impressive and much talked about four-fold doors on the bays at the Whitchurch-Stoufville Fire Department (north of Toronto). Photo by Laura King
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A better view of the doors on the three bays at the Whitchurch-Stoufville Fire Department. Photo by Laura King
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We’ll
feature more about the Whitchurch-Stoufville station in Fire Fighting in Canada.
As for Chief Powers, he figures he’ll
probably end up back in the Ottawa area (he was chief in Cumberland, Ont.) near two of this three grown
children and will continue to work on the Section 21 committee of the Ontario
Association of Fire Chiefs. Looks like you can take the fire chief out of
Whitchurch-Stoufville but . . .
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Interesting
story out of Kelowna, B.C., today that provided no
details about the departure of Chief Rene Blanliel other than the fact that he “left
his post in mutual agreement with the city”. I asked and was assured that there’s
nothing more to the story than that. Hmm.
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And,
congratulations to Julie Wade, the first female firefighter in Nanaimo, B.C.
Nanaimo Chief Ron Lambert, who I met during the FCABC conference last year in
his beautiful city, told the local paper that “the evolution of our workforce
is to the point where [the hiring] will be highly accepted and highly
successful”.
Wade, 29, has been a
volunteer firefighter for three years. Lambert said he is confident Wade's
transition to a permanent, full-time position will be seamless.
Let’s hope so!
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