Whether in rural Alberta or war-torn Afghanistan, Chad Cooper’s passion for firefighting burns hotter than the heart of a blaze.
Now the veteran firefighter has brought his youthful energy and task-driven spirit to Flin Flon as the city’s new fire chief.
“I’ve been around the fire industry since I’ve been born, basically,” said Cooper, a Lethbridge, Alberta, native whose father was a fire captain.
“It’s been my dream to be a firefighter since I was 12 years old.”
Cooper has spent a dozen years fighting fires, most recently as deputy fire chief at an oil refinery in the United Arab Emirates.
When he saw a job listing for fire chief in Flin Flon, he knew it would be a good fit.
“I’d been wanting to
move back to Canada for several years now, so I figured it was a good opportunity to get back,” said Cooper.
He had never before been to Flin Flon, but like many Canadians he had heard of it as a hotbed of mining and hockey. He was also attracted to the community’s outdoor-living opportunities.
Cooper, who started as fire chief on Monday, said his first tasks are to get to know the area and his firefighters, including their strengths and weaknesses.
A married father of one, he was drawn to firefighting while growing up the son of a long-time fire captain.
“I grew up in the fire station. I was always dragged to meeting nights, practice nights, responded on calls with him,” Cooper said. “And I got the bug early, when I was little, just seeing how [firefighters] worked together. It’s almost like a family – your second family. There’s a very strong bond between them.”
The task of firefighting itself also suits Cooper.
“I like working with my hands, getting dirty,” he said, “[and] you can trust the guy beside you that he’s going to pull you out of the fire if you get injured or hurt.”
Cooper began his career in 2004 as a volunteer firefighter in the rural Alberta town of Taber. He was just 20 years old.
Two years later, in 2006, he graduated from an intensive six-month firefighter training course at College of the Rockies in
Cranbrook, BC.
Since then Cooper has held a number of diverse positions. He was a firefighter and captain for SafetyBOSS, a safety services and oil-well firefighting company out of Calgary.
He was also a firefighter on the Canadian Forces base in Wainwright, Alberta, and spent a year with NATO responding to structural and airport fires at a military base in Afghanistan’s volatile Kandahar district.
Now in Flin Flon, Cooper is impressed by the 29 firefighters under his command.
“The calibre is amazing,” he said. “These guys are highly dedicated – very well trained, very well equipped.”
At 31, Cooper is the youngest fire chief Flin Flon has seen in memory, if not ever. So what of those who think he may be too green for the position?
“I would say I’ve been very strategic in my career approach,” he said when asked to respond to that sentiment. “I’ve taken several advanced courses, got my fire officer’s certificate and I’ve travelled all over the world. I’ve been kind of broadening my horizons, exploring different parts of the fire service, whether industrial, overseas, in hostile countries.”
Mayor Cal Huntley called Cooper a strong replacement for the now-retired Jim Petrie, who had been on the job since 1999.
“We needed to fill the role with someone who we – mayor and council, management and the volunteer firefighters – believe will continue to provide the responsible leadership needed in that position,” the mayor said.
Among the many blazes Cooper has battled, one stands out as particularly awful. It occurred when a car bomb blew up just outside the NATO base in Afghanistan, catching buildings on fire and injuring multiple soldiers and locals.
On scene, he reverted back to his training.
“You just focus on what you’ve been trained to do,” Cooper said. “It just comes in automatically and you look [to] the strength of your fellow firefighters and you work as a team. Without the teamwork, you’ll fail at the job.”
Cooper said his office is always open to residents who would like to speak with him or take a tour of the fire hall. He said people are welcome to reach him on his cell phone at 204-271-1492.
