Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Retirement just a few weeks away, Fred Stephenson rushed to the Christmas morning structure fire in Bath taking solace knowing it would be the final family holiday interrupted by an emergency.
That call would mark the last major fire of his 38 year career with Loyalist Township Emergency Services-eight of which spent as the department’s fire chief. He officially retired on Friday.
“I went out of the house at 4:30 a.m. and I’ve had a few Christmases over the year where I’ve missed them due to work, so my wife says ‘see you tomorrow’. And I went ‘look at the bright side, it’s the last time I’ll ever have this,’” recalled Stephenson, recounting the Dec. 25 fire on Gildersleeve Boulevard which was limited to houses that were still under construction. “(The previous) Christmas Eve day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day we were tied up with the snow storm. In 2022 on Christmas Day my wife was preparing for our family that was coming over, we were fortunate they all live within a block so they can walk, and I was doing an emergency control room meeting at our kitchen table. Who would have ever thought I would have to do that? Anyway, I won’t have to do that anymore.”
The remains of the Christmas morning fire in a Bath subdivision on Gildersleeve Boulevard, one of the last calls Loyalist Township fire chief Fred Stephenson responded to before his retirement. Photo by Christopher Murray.
Though there were no injuries, Stephenson estimates the damage caused on the Christmas Day fire was pegged at nearly $6 million, the most costliest in terms of financial losses in his career.
That’s a career that spans nearly four decades as he got his start with the department in 1986, signing on as a volunteer. In 1995 he accepted a full-time role and by 2012 he had worked his way up to deputy chief. In 2015 he took over as acting chief, with the ‘acting’ part of the title dropped in 2016. His tenure also included a stint as the township’s deputy CAO as well as a four month run as acting CAO.
During that time as acting CAO he had the joy of having a local landlord, upset over a fine for not having a working smoke alarm in one of their buildings, call to complain to the fire chief. Exasperated that they weren’t getting anywhere with the chief, they threatened to take the matter right to the CAO. They promptly hung up and dialed the CAO-only to get Stephenson again on the other line.
Moments like that, as well as the opportunity to serve his community, are what kept him going in a role that typically sees a high turn over rate when compared to neighbouring municipalities.
“I just got very embedded and set in my ways here and the firefighters are like my second family,” Stephenson said on his longevity with Loyalist. “I probably spend more time during the week with them than I do with my wife, or at least awake hours. It’s been a long run. When I joined the fire department it was Ernestown Township and when I got hired full-time it was still Ernestown, it was pre-amalgamation. We had two stations and 45 firefighters. Now we have four stations and I have 100 firefighters and nine full-time staff and we’re growing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the changes that need to happen.”
Industrial developments such as the Latham Group Inc. facility and the Umicore electric vehicle battery plant coupled with several new subdivision builds have meant rapid growth for Loyalist. Mutual-aid partnerships with neighbouring Greater Napanee and Kingston have been crucial in keeping the department prepared for the worst. Still it’s impossible to know what each call will bring.
“We’ve seen a lot of heartache over the years, a lot of people who have lost a lot of stuff,” said Stephenson when asked about some of his more memorable calls. “We’ve had a couple of calls where the families for one reason or another they didn’t have insurance or didn’t have enough insurance. It was always really nice to see the members of our community step up to help those people. The firefighters would step up too, but there’s only so much they can do.”
Nothing compares to the grief experienced in July 2016 when Loyalist firefighter Patrick Pidgeon died in the line of duty while battling a fire in Amherstview.
“That was something I would never want another chief to have to live through,” said Stephenson. “That was a bad time for the department. The only saving grace was that after all the investigations were complete, no one at the fire department was at fault. It was just circumstances from the building and people tampering with the fire suppression that was in the building. It was nothing that we did wrong, but it didn’t make it any easier on us. At least they couldn’t find any fault with what we did, everyone was able to go home and say we did the best we could under the circumstances. I don’t think anyone could have prevented what happened that day, I think we were just lucky it was just one of us and not more of us.”
The retiring chief said the tragedy did make the department even stronger as they became even closer.
As he gets set to begin a new chapter, Stephenson says there’s a bit of trepidation on his part as the township is yet to name a replacement chief. He says the department is still in good hands however and he believes the staff is more than capable of running things smoothly in the interim.
“I’m not going to miss the job as much as I’m going to miss the people,” he added. “The job has been very rewarding over the years. I’m looking forward to doing nothing. I’m looking forward to not having a pager and not being on call.”