Three Pre-Service Firefighter graduates honoured for heroism

By Rick Garrick

FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION — Fort William First Nation kicked off Fire Safety and Prevention Week with an honouring ceremony for three Confederation College Pre-Service Firefighter Education and Training graduates who helped save three people this past winter.

“I’m especially proud to be here today in Fort William First Nation to honour these graduates,” says Kathleen Lynch, president of Confederation College, during the Oct. 12 ceremony at the Fort William First Nation Community Centre. “You are why we are here today, and I understand the unique honour that you are being presented is a first for students in a program, so that is truly wonderful. On behalf of the entire college community, I want to congratulate Devon [Wanakamik], Riley [Tucker] and Taya [Stamler] on your heroism.”

Stamler, Tucker and Wanakamik were honoured for heroism by the Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal and Emergency Management for helping save a homeowner, his son and grandson from a house fire after noticing smoke coming from their attached garage while travelling to classes at Confederation College on Feb. 1.

“As we were training, we learned how to read smoke prior to that event so we knew exactly what was going on,” says Wanakamik, a Whitesand First Nation citizen. “The attached garage was starting to get filled with smoke so it was exiting the structure at a high velocity. We knew that it was ready to ignite soon so we approached the building and we woke up the homeowner and [the family] got out safely.”

Tucker, from Ignace, says he could smell the smoke and feel the heat from the fire as they approached the garage.

“And then I heard that it was burning inside,” Tucker says. “I was pounding on the door for probably a minute-and-a-half to two minutes and then an elderly man came out. The fire department showed up a couple of minutes after we had them in our car warming up.”

Stamler, from Rainy River, says the “adrenaline kicked in” while they were helping the family members to get out of the house.

“You basically know what to do because the knowledge was in our head,” Stamler says. “It was very smoky inside and it was hard to breathe.”

Guy DeGagne, principal of the Office of the Fire Marshal and Emergency Management, says the three graduates are exemplary of the effectiveness and efficiency of the Pre-Service Firefighting program in Ontario.

“This heroic event demonstrated the importance of training and above all it demonstrated each student’s professionalism, dedication and passion for the firefighting profession,” DeGagne says. “I congratulate and thank Devon, Riley and Taya for embracing a career to the service of the people of Ontario in the reduction and elimination of dramatic and destructive fire and public safety events.”

Will Solomon, fire prevention officer with Fort William and a Pre-Service Firefighter Education and Training graduate, explained during the ceremony how he developed a proposal to start a fire department in Fort William after the community lost some homes to structural fires.

“We are going to go [with a] composite firefighting crew, so we will have some full-time members and we will have some volunteers,” Solomon says. “We’ve had a lot of positive feedback — everybody thinks this is a longtime coming and they feel like we do need this in our community.”

Beau Boucher-McLaren, a Pre-Service Firefighter Education and Training student who joined the program due to Solomon’s efforts to start a fire department in Fort William, helped with the Fire Safety and Prevention Week activities.

“It’s just to make people aware of fire prevention and that it does happen,” Boucher-McLaren says, “to get people up with the smoke alarms and showing them what we are doing in the community.”