There’s nothing quite like making a full-time job out of something you’d be willing to do for free.

Jasper’s new Deputy Fire Chief Don Smith has been volunteering with the Jasper Fire Brigade for the past 25 years, and on Jan. 31, he finally made the jump to a full-time firefighter when the position became available. 

The born-and-raised Jasperite began his career after spending two years at Calgary’s Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). While Smith was away at school his father signed up to volunteer at the Jasper fire hall. As school rolled on, Smith began to wonder what led to his father’s decision. Upon returning to Jasper, Smith decided to try volunteer firefighting out for himself in 1985. 

“Before you know it, 25 years go by,” he said. 

This spring Smith celebrates his 25th year as a fireman. He became a captain about 12 years ago, and has continued to train on his own time to better serve the community of Jasper and those that visit here. 

In 1986 the fire brigade formed a society, and Smith has acted as chairman and treasurer, before stepping down this year to take the second-highest position at the fire hall. 

Now Smith is working on courses to become a fire inspector. He said the constant opportunity for courses and more learning is something that keeps him interested in firefighting. 

“There’s a lot of opportunities, and things are always changing,” he said.

As technology for buildings and vehicles change, so do the skills of a firefighter. Smith said vehicles now crush a lot more than they used to. Often emergency personnel will arrive on a horrific-looking crash scene, only to discover the destroyed vehicle has protected its occupants. 

“Often we come up to car wrecks that look really bad, and when we open them up the people are well protected,” he said. 

Those new safety innovations have certainly led to more happy stories than they used to, but Smith said the firefighters pull together to support each other when things don’t go as well. Those friendships help make the harder calls a bit easier. 

The Jasper fire hall usually has 25 to 30 volunteers. Right now there are 28 people who answer the call when needed. 

“You have a lot of dependency on each other,” Smith said. 

With the new job, Smith has gone from one of the guys, to the boss. He said the transition has been surprisingly smooth. He now manages the volunteers and equipment and keeps records on courses undertaken. 

Throughout the day, Smith never does the same thing twice. He can be out on a call, fixing equipment, doing inspections or any number of tasks at any point. 

“You don’t ever really know what you’re doing (every day). You have to be able to adapt,” Smith said. “That kind of is the best idea about being a fireman.”

Being able to adapt also means being prepared whenever the call comes in. 

“You’re always ready to help, but you don’t want to have to do it,” Smith said. “Ideally, you don’t get called.”

Because Jasper is a major traffic corridor, many of the department’s calls are traffic incidents. Weather conditions and the sheer volume of vehicles travelling through each day contribute to the calls. 

Calls per week are never constant. Sometimes the brigade will receive three calls a day and other times they can go months without leaving the hall. Smith said there has been little activity at the fire hall over the past two months. Calls can range from 100 to 200 calls per year. 

“There’s really no rhyme or reason,” he said. “People don’t plan their accidents.”

Smith said once a firefighter starts volunteering, they are usually in it for life. 

“Once you get involved with the organization, usually you stay involved,” he said. 

What leads volunteers to answer the call varies. For Smith it was his dad that peaked his interest, but he realized the need was important for somebody to fill. 

“I was thinking it’s a very important job, somebody has to do it,” he said. “We don’t have paid positions in small towns. It’s really up to the community to have volunteers step forward. You put yourself in the position of, ‘What if it was you or your family?’”

That responsibility and his enjoyment of the volunteerism has kept Smith in Jasper. Whenever he thought of moving, he was always worried there wouldn’t be a volunteer fire department to join. 

“It really becomes ingrained in who you are,” he said. 

Living in Jasper all his life has helped Smith easily transition into the deputy chief position. He did all of his training out of the Jasper Fire Brigade, and has an intricate knowledge of the town and outlying areas. Deputy chiefs that start at a new fire hall can often take a while to get acclimated, but Smith knows how the fire hall works, and had even stepped in to help out Fire Chief Greg Van Tighem, and outgoing Deputy Chief Ron Stanko when needed. 

“I’ve been through the system. I was able to step into a lot of rolls really quickly,” he said, adding that his training that was done locally gets to stay local. “They get to reap the benefits of training me. My first day they were able to hand me the keys and say, ‘Here you go.’”

With all his training and passion of firefighting, Smith never actually considered a full-time career as a fireman. 

“For me it was just a timing thing. I’d never really thought of becoming a full time firefighter,” he said. 

When Stanko moved on, a self-employed Smith and his wife discussed the option, and he decided to go for it. 

“It just came up at the right time,” he said. 

Smith found himself discovering the vast differences between full-time and volunteer firefighting. In a full-time position, he gets to focus on firefighting all the time, while a volunteer has other commitments and has to make the time for new training. It’s been a welcome change for Smith.

“Because it’s now my job, I think about it all the time, so it’s more satisfying,” he said. “It’s obviously something I like doing.”

Smith also gets to implement changes and make improvements now that he has more of an authority position. He enjoys being able to improve the already-smooth working fire house. 

“I was really excited and happy to be here,” Smith said of the new placement. 

He said it was strange to start, but things are becoming as routine as they can be in the unpredictable environment of the Jasper fire hall. 

“It’s starting to sink in,” Smith said. “It’s busy, the days fly by. Sometimes it’s mind boggling because it does just go so fast.”