Airport fire captain retires after 37 years
Pat Fowler has seen it all from his own pants catching fire, to a baby carried from a plane after being born mid-air
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Monday, May 23, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
When Pat Fowler first started as a firefighter 37 years ago, the job was to put out the fire and rescue the people - he says that hasn't changed much, but the safety gear sure has.
Capt. Pat Fowler, right, gets a congratulatory handshake from Capt. Garret Churchill in front of a fire truck on Tuesday at the airport fire hall. After 37 years as a Yellowknife airport firefighter, Fowler is retiring from the job July 5. - John McFadden/NNSL photo
Airport firefighter Pat Fowler, right, warms up around a fire with Paul Tuttle while the two were doing snowshoe training near the airport back in 1985. - photo courtesy of Pat Fowler |
"My first fire ... my bunker pants caught on fire. Four days into the job - I didn't know what to do," Fowler recalled. "The truck used chemicals and they put the fire out. I wasn't burned - just the gear caught fire. That's the way it was back then, really haphazard."
The 61-year-old native of Brandon, Man., moved to the North when he was in his early twenties to be closer to his two brothers. He was working as a construction labourer in Yellowknife when he heard the fire department was looking for people.
He started at the Airport Fire Hall on July 9, 1979 and he's been there ever since.
Come the first week of July, that fire hall is going to look a lot different. After 37 years as a firefighter and now the captain, Fowler is hanging up his helmet.
Over the years, Fowler has seen a lot of changes at the hall, many going back to improvements in safety and procedure.
"Back then, you either wore a breathing apparatus or you didn't," Fowler said. "The chief at the time basically told us to get in there and fight the fire. A lot of the time we didn't have a breathing apparatus on."
He said the safety of the firefighters is a much higher priority now than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Fowler's early introduction to the risks involved in the firefighting was something he never forgot - he laughs that it was the man he was working with that actually alerted him to his pants being on fire.
At that time, the crew worked out of a building beside the airport but have since been moved to the modern combined services building off Deh Cho Boulevard.
Though some calls are easier than others, Fowler has seen his share of emergency situations and learned to grapple with the severity of them.
"Hot brakes and fuel spills kept us busy back in the day," Fowler said. "But my first crash was at the golf course. In the early 1980s there were two fatalities in that crash. Welders had worked on the plane and no one realized the cockpit had filled with carbon monoxide. The pilot was disoriented and went down. We were first on the scene."
Rather than becoming rattled by that first crash, Fowler said it motivated and inspired him. The incident made him realize he could make a difference and perhaps save people's lives.
That's why, he said, despite being offered the job as fire chief three different times, he turned it down. He wanted to stay active, on the floor working with his fellow firefighters. Although as captain he does have a desk and an office, he said he never wanted to be chained to it, pushing paper and trying to manage the operation.
And out in the field for 37 years, you do get to see a lot of things.
Fowler said one of his most memorable shifts was in 2013 when a plane en route from Amsterdam to Calgary made an emergency landing in Yellowknife after a woman gave birth while in flight.
"I wasn't directly involved but watching the paramedic carry the newborn off the flight was really something," he said.
While Fowler is modest about his impact on the rest of the crew, Garret Churchill, also a captain at the hall, is sure of it.
"He was a great teacher. He has set an example my entire career. I was put into situations when I first started out as a young guy that I wasn't necessarily ready to deal with," Churchill said. "Pat is not going to tell you what you need to hear - he's more: look at me and do what I do."
Outside of work as well, Churchill said Fowler leads by example.
"I was going to drive to Calgary at Christmas to be with my wife and daughters and didn't have much food for the trip," he recalled. "Pat made me a bunch of sandwiches and fruit."
Like Fowler, Churchill worked his way up from a rookie firefighter to captain with next to no experience and training. And Fowler has been there all along the way.
"I don't want to get too sentimental about the old guy," Churchill says. "But he showed me how to be."
Fowler turned down a retirement party in his honour and asked that the money that would have been spent on it be donated to Hopes Haven, a transitional home for youth in Yellowknife.
His last official day on the job is July 5.
