When the fire call goes out in Lumby, you might see a group of teens dash out of the high school and run towards the fire hall. Despite their age, they are active members of the Lumby and District Fire Department.
The department’s long running junior firefighter program allows teens to learn valuable skills while helping their community.
Lumby has had junior firefighters since 1995. Originally it was a way to add extra manpower to the department.
“The mills were shutting down and a lot of people were leaving town… to go and find work so we were looking for a way to increase the membership,” fire chief Tony Clayton explained.
It’s also become a chance for local teens to learn a new skill set.
“It gives them a good work ethic because they are in a work environment with a crew. They learn to follow direction,” Clayton said.
The four junior firefighters are trained to the same standard as the rest of the crew. There are only a few tasks the teens aren’t allowed to take part in. They don’t respond to motor vehicle accidents or assist paramedics and they aren’t allowed to go inside burning buildings.
For Nicholas Claridge, 16, becoming a junior firefighter has been a boyhood dream come true. He moved to the Lumby area from Toronto four years ago and knew right away he wanted to sign up as a junior firefighter when he turned 16.
“I guess every four-year-old, they want to be a firefighter or a super hero or something,” Claridge said. “I guess I was the four-year-old that meant it.”
While responding to a fire is just as thrilling as Claridge imagined it would be, he didn’t expect the job to be so difficult.
“When you are at big calls like house fires it is non-stop,” he said.
That hasn’t dampened the teen’s enthusiasm for becoming a career firefighter one day.
Comments