While cities and large towns have the funding to employ full-time fire departments, many small towns in Alberta rely on the nearly 9,000 volunteers firefighters to keep their communities safe.
Chad Sartison is just one of the thousands of Albertans doing their part to assist the firefighting effort in the province’s rural areas. A volunteer at the Priddis fire hall in the M.D. of Foothills, southwest of Calgary, the former financial planner decided to join the fire crew after a chance encounter during his family’s hunt for a Christmas tree.
“The fire hall was selling Christmas trees to raise money and they asked if I wanted to join,” says Sartison. “I thought, ‘what little boy didn't want to be a firefighter’ so I thought about it for a couple of months, because it's a big commitment, and decided if they were gonna give me the training, I'd give them the time.”
Since then, Chad has become an inspiration to his fellow volunteers including Joel Fournie.
“What I quickly learned about Chad was his passion for the volunteer fire services and helping others around him,” says Fournie. “He is the man with Firefighters First and that was his gig, to go around and help volunteer firefighters and volunteer services get access to funding and equipment.”
While Sartison volunteered at the Longview fire station, he came up with the idea to raise funds for a piece of equipment they needed. He decided to do a calendar and called it ‘The Fire Within’. Sales of the project exceeded his greatest expectations.
“The project worked so well that we started getting phone calls from fire departments all over the province,” says Sartison. “That's how the organization The Fire Within was born. We started expanding it across the province and than ultimately it started to expand across the country and so it was a ride I didn't expect to take.”
Fournie says Sartison’s efforts are an inspiration to other firefighters
“When somebody is that passionate about something, it's hard not to jump on board and become passionate alongside him.”
Chad says there are a large number of residents on ranches, farms and acreages in the area that depend on the volunteers, and the volunteer crews require the same level of training as their paid counterparts.
“We're expected to do everything from grass fires to structure fires to motor vehicle accidents and medicals. The majority of our calls are medicals, by far, and number two would be motor vehicle accidents.”
Chad is moving closer to becoming a career firefighter. The hall at Heritage Pointe is the first M.D. of Foothills fire station to include both paid and volunteer firefighters. Both Chad and Joel Fournie work paid duty at the station while still finding time to volunteer at Priddis.
For his dedication to protecting the people of the M.D. of Foothills and encouraging other volunteer firefighters, Chad Sartison is this week’s Inspiring Albertan.
With files from Darrel Janz
