Get to know Windsor’s new fire chief | CBC News

Windsor Fire and Rescue Services named named its upcoming chief earlier this month.

Starting Jan. 1, Jamie Waffle assumes the role, with the retirement of Stephen Laforet.

Waffle has served as a firefighter for the city of Windsor for 27 years, with the last six as deputy chief of operations and training.

CBC Radio’s Windsor Morning guest host Peter Duck spoke with him about his career journey from firefighter to chief, his thoughts on how the industry has progressed, and his advice to young people looking to get into fire services.

How did you first become interested in being a firefighter, were you one of those kids who liked to wear those plastic hats and push around the toy fire truck when you were a preschooler?

Funny story, I grew up and I had an uncle that was a firefighter. He was a volunteer firefighter in my young days, hanging around my cousin who occasionally  would end up in his car and going to fires and what not, so I was always interested in the volunteering of fire services.

That’s really how I got my start. I was 20 years old, I got hired at LaSalle’s fire department as a volunteer.

I was going to school, and it was at that point I think it was probably a few weeks in, and I thought man, “I love this.” I think this is what I wanna do. It became my pursuit at that time.

What does it take to work your way up from that kind of rookie firefighter to becoming chief?

Listen, learn, there’s a lot of people out there willing to mentor you along the way.

As I’ve gotten through my career, take the opportunities in front of you, put your full effort in, have a good attitude, have a good work ethic, those things have all driven me to just open doors and opportunities through my years in fire service.

Over the course of your career in fire service I’m sure you see a lot of things, good and bad. How do you think those experiences have shaped the kind of the person you want to be as a leader?

Absolutely. I’ve seen some really good stuff, been part of some good news stories, with that comes tragedy. 

You’re always seeing, or often seeing people in their worst time or on the worst days of their lives. 

We have this opportunity to share and to journey with people in their worst times, and just be a little, beacon of hope, a little light in their worst times, and that’s kinda guided my path.

If you get to a point where you’re losing your compassion, maybe it’s time to move on to something else.

The compassion side to me, helping people out, and the other side of it is working together as a team. We are a very good team at Windsor Fire Rescue Services, we lean on each other, chat with each other like I said earlier.

Good mentors have helped me through some of the difficult times, and good relationships, internally and externally are really important.

What plans or priorities do you have for when you take over as Chief in the new year?

First and foremost it’s to continue that commitment to the safety and the community that is paramount to myself and to what we do as well as the health and safety of our people.

Those two things are top priority. Those things keep us focused as to what we’re doing.

We have a very young department right now, we have a number of retirees over the last two to three years, several have retired, and retired with smiles on their faces. 

It’s time they’ve made their marks on the city, they’ve been great leaders in the organization, but now it’s time to kind of hone the skills to some of the upcoming individuals that we have in the department.

We’re just wrapping up fire prevention week, do you feel that we’ve made headway in preventing fires and getting safety messages out over the years?

Sometimes. The whole “smoke alert make it work for you”, it’s a message that’s been consistent for a lot of years.

But we still see sometimes 50 per cent of our fires are either not there, the batteries are out of the alarm, or they are not working properly.

We’ve been doing this a long time and there’s really no excuse for that.

Smoke alarms absolutely do save lives and that push has been consistent for a long time, but we’re really pleading with the public too, to check your smoke alarms, and make sure they’re working, make them work for you, because i think a lot of people think that “fires can’t happen to me”, but, when they happen, your time to get out is two to three minutes, and your house can be fully engulfed.

We’re asking the public to just really pay attention to your smoke alarms … it’s the law now, you have to have a working smoke alarm, at least on every floor, and outside your sleeping areas.

Is it frustrating to see those 50 per cent numbers after you continued that message? Do you have to try to find new ways to try to get it across?

When we look at our statistics last year in 2023, we had almost 300 fires, 293 fires last year in the city of Windsor.

We had 28 civilian injuries, one fatality, many of those preventable, had they been able to get out earlier, had a smoke alarm.

We had 17 firefighter injuries last year, and those things all add up, and they are absolutely preventable, so frustrating yes. On top of that you’re looking at about $25 million in property damage, in 2023 alone.

The job of being a firefighter has changed over the years. Do you think it’s a harder job than it used to be?

In some ways it’s evolving. In the city of Windsor we have a busy fire service. Look back to about 2012-2013, we were running about 6,500 runs in the city, or calls for the fire service.

We were turning toward 10,000 this year. In 10 years we’re looking at a 35-40 per cent increase in the run.

It’s busier, we’re working with EMS.

We’re running to some of the medicals with them. Demands are definitely higher. For sure.

Is there still a lot of interest in becoming a firefighter?

Yes. Year-to-year we are seeing anywhere from 600 to 1000 applicants.

Typically we are looking at eight to 12 hires per year here in Windsor. That’s usually what were seeing. The interest is definitely there.

What would you say to a young person who is just out of high school who may have an interest in fire fighting? Would you recommend it as a career? What would you tell them to prepare?

Absolutely. Now is always the time to start that path. Start networking, start looking up even through our web page where we give some guidelines on how to become a firefighter.

St. Clair College is running a fire service and pre fire service program to help train people as our number of colleges within the province.

Work hard, get yourself in good volunteer training in the community. 

We like to know that people are involved in the community and committed to the community.

Don’t give up, work hard.