After close to three decades of service with the Sechelt Fire Department, new fire chief Trevor Pike officially took the helm from retiring chief Bill Higgs on May 1.
Pike spent his first 15 years with the Sechelt department as a volunteer before putting in an additional 12 years in paid positions as a training officer and then assistant fire chief.
“It’s an honour to take over the position of Sechelt chief,” Pike said this week.
“It’s something I’ve worked towards most of my career and 27 years later, here I am.”
His first order of business as fire chief is to prepare an up-to-date community risk assessment for the District of Sechelt.
Once complete, the new chief said he’ll “measure our resources against the assessment to see if there’s any deficiencies and if so, then I’ll address those as a priority.”
“I’ve also got some administration changes that I’m going to be reviewing and adjusting as necessary,” Pike said.
He noted that things have been working well operationally at the detachment so he doesn’t plan to make any waves there.
“There’s no use messing around with something that’s working,” Pike said.
“I think the transition will be fairly smooth.”
Pike plans to continue putting a strong emphasis on fire prevention and the use of sprinklers and said he’ll also keep a close eye on the size of the growing Sechelt community.
“If it gets to the point where we can’t handle call volumes in the volunteer structure, we’ll have to look at potentially changing our structure down the road. And if that means more career staff or additional stations then we’ll have to consider it at that time,” Pike said.
“But right now there will be no significant change.”
Pike plans to “keep an open door policy” at the Sechelt Fire Department and he encourages members of the public with questions, concerns or suggestions for the fire service to bring those to him.
“One of my main goals is to, myself, get out and engage with the community at the various different community events and meetings so I can interact and gain insight from the community,” Pike noted.
“The more I can get the feel from the community the more I can make informed decisions.”
Outgoing fire chief Higgs was honoured by coworkers, family and friends at an invite-only event held at the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden on April 30. Higgs arrived in a classic fire truck with his wife and was surprised by all of the attendants who were lined up on either side of the garden path, waiting to shake his hand and congratulate him on an accomplished career.
Higgs was also put in the ripper chair for the last time, which is a tradition in fire halls. Higgs explained that if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, all the other firefighters will rip into you.
“It’s a bit of bullying – I suppose – but in a nice way. It’s not malicious, it’s not mean spirited,” Higgs said. “I’m in the ripper chair tonight because it’s my last time and they’re going to tease the shit out of me on my retirement. They’ll be telling stories, stuff I screwed up, stuff I did wrong. That’s what being in the ripper chair is all about.”
Typically it’s not an actual chair, but for his retirement party they decorated a special ripper chair with balloons and firefighting gear just for Higgs.
– With files from Jacob Roberts
