Orillia Fire Department captain Chris Ferry is the third generation of his family to become a firefighter.
Ferry’s grandfather was a volunteer firefighter, his father was a volunteer firefighter who worked his way up to becoming a deputy chief, and his mother worked for the fire department as a dispatcher.
“I kind of grew up with it. I haven’t really known any other job, it’s what I wanted to be my whole life,” Ferry said
Ferry started his 24-year firefighting career when he graduated from Orillia District Collegiate & Vocational Institute and ventured off to Seneca College where he completed the fire protection engineering program.
“When I was going through college there were very few programs available for firefighting, and the Seneca course I took was more of an engineering course than a firefighting course,” Ferry said.
Nonetheless, Ferry was able to accomplish his goal of becoming a firefighter soon after with the City of Toronto, before coming home to work in Orillia where he has worked for the last 18 years.
Ferry has always been attracted to the job of being a firefighter as the gig can come with a lot of excitement.
“The helping the community aspect always appealed to me, and there is really never a dull moment, “ Ferry said.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen or when it’s going to happen, it’s kind of exciting that way.”
However, Ferry has learned to tame the adrenaline that comes with the sound of the alarm, and hopping in the truck, en route to a call.
“Starting out when you’re a new firefighter, there is always an adrenaline rush when the alarm goes off. You never know what it’s going to be or what you are going to have to do when you get there,” he explained.
“When you move on in your career you learn to tame that adrenaline and start to think of the bigger picture. Especially as the captain, I have to take into consideration what I might run into based on my experience and then start developing a plan when I get there," he explained. "There are different emotions that you experience as you move through different parts of your career.”
Firefighting isn’t always exciting, sometimes there is lots of time spent hanging around the station, but even still, the job rarely presents downtime.
“We do all our maintenance around the station, we fix things that break, we have a minimum of four hours of training each shift (so) there is generally not too much downtime. There is always lots going on in the station,” Ferry says.
Time spent at the station also gives firefighters a chance to talk out some of the emotions that are felt when they get calls to help people on the worst day of their lives.
“There has been a bigger focus on mental injuries over the last few years. People can see the physical injuries but not the mental ones,” Ferry said.
“The longer you go into your career the more and more you see, so there can be a big build-up and then that can cause injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder,” he told OrilliaMatters.
Ferry says there is a lot more awareness about the mental health of first responders from when he first got into the job as a volunteer when he was just 18-years-old.
“There has been more of a focus on dealing with that over the last few years, having people talk and get it out,” he explained.
“We have programs that we can utilize where we can talk to therapists and psychologists, even talking about it among ourselves after a call can really help a lot," he said.
Away from work, Ferry is a husband, and a father to his 12-year old daughter, and eight-year-old son. They enjoy sharing summer hobbies together such as downtime on the boat, and kayaking. Ferry says he rarely brings work home with him.
“Some of the fires we’ve been in can get a little hectic, sometimes things don’t go as planned and I’ve had some close calls in my career. There have been some scary moments for me,” Ferry said.
“I’ve always been a firefighter ever since before my wife and I got married, so my family doesn’t really know any different," he explained. "My wife knows the risks that are involved, my family doesn’t express too much concern. They know that I go to work, and then I come home in the morning.”
Despite the dangers involved, Ferry believes his family is proud of him for working as a firefighter.
“They like that I’m a firefighter. They don’t know specifics of what I do and see because I don’t really tell them, but they know that when I go to work I’m trying to help out the citizens of Orillia, and I think they like that,” he said.
Ferry says the best part of his job is when people that he and the crew have helped stop by the station to give thanks.
“We don’t become firefighters to look for gratitude or anything like that. It’s our job to help people out. But, afterward, when someone comes out of a tough spot or a bad situation and we get to meet up with them once they recover, it’s a nice feeling,” he said.
“It’s kind of good when you see an end result to people we help.”
On March 1, Ferry will take the next step in his career, when he officially takes the reins as Deputy Chief of the Orillia Fire Department.
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