Pride. Gratitude. Respect.
Those were some of the words Ian Josephson, fire chief with the Chilliwack Fire Department, used to describe the people he’s worked with over the years and his biggest accomplishments.
On Friday (March 15) he will be retiring after 23 years with the fire department, and for nearly 11 of those years he held the title of fire chief.
“I’m going to miss the people, that’s going to be the tough part. The men and women in this department are amazing. The city staff that I’ve worked with for 20-plus years are amazing.”
He was never in a career of fire suppression, rather his expertise is in fire prevention and investigation and has a diploma in civil engineering.
Back in 1987, Josephson was a manager for Fire Underwriters Survey where he assessed fire departments’ waterworks systems for the insurance industry.
Following that, he was a fire prevention officer in Langley for seven years before moving to Chilliwack in 2001 where he was hired first as assistant chief, fire prevention and investigation.
Josephson has nothing but praise for his team at the fire department, but also for the City of Chilliwack, specifically mayor and council.
He said he’s really going to miss working with mayor and council who have provided “unwavering” support to not just Josephson, but to the entire fire department.
Josephson recalled a particularly difficult tragedy within the first year he was in Chilliwack.
Six months into his role, a fatal fire on Unsworth Road claimed the lives of three children. They were living in a trailer with no smoke detectors.
“That really touched me. I thought ‘We’ve got to do something,’” he said. “That’s how our home smoke alarm program started.”
That was back in 2001, and part of the program is to hand out smoke detectors to those who don’t have one when firefighters go to a call, or when people come in to the hall.
Firefighters will even install smoke alarms at no charge, for those who are unable to, such as seniors.
“When you can help people like that, then you can protect them. Because the last thing you want is for them to suffer from a fire-related injury.”
He credits the city for helping get the home smoke alarm program in place, and also with bringing in a sprinkler bylaw in 2007. The city also played a big part in the fire department being able to hire more staff.
But he has loved working with residents, too.
“You know what I love the most is when people phone us up and they’ve got problems, and we can send somebody out or we can deal with it directly and can solve their problems,” he said.
“That’s really gratifying for me.”
When he first arrived in Chilliwack, it was a city of about 60,000 people. Over the years, it has grown to more than 100,000. Keeping up with its growth has been one of the biggest challenges.
The Chilliwack Fire Department is a composite fire department, meaning there are both career firefighters and paid-on-call firefighters who get paged to emergencies. There are 50 career firefighters and about 125 paid-on-call.
“I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve maintained this system. We’ve continuously improved it over the years, and made the changes to meet the community’s need,” Josephson said. “Because ultimately, we serve the community.”
The success of the composite system is one of his biggest accomplishments.
Josephson gave thanks to the fire prevention division, training division, suppression division, and administration. He said he is grateful to the team and said everyone does a “phenomenal job” and they are “dedicated.”
On Friday (March 15) at 4 p.m., there will be a traditional ‘walk-off’ ceremony for Josephson, honouring him for his years of service.
He’ll walk out of his office and leave Hall #1. After saying a few words, he will climb into fire truck and the new fire chief will drive him home.
That new chief will be Andy Brown.
“He starts at 4:31 p.m. on Friday,” Josephson said with a laugh.
There will be challenges as the city continues to grow, but Chilliwack will still be in good hands, Josephson said.
His immediate retirement plans are to travel to Mexico with this wife in April and to see his daughter get married in June.
“It’s been an honour and a privilege for me to be fire chief for 10-plus years. I couldn’t think of a better career.”
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