Member Profile – Chuck Guy

Member Profile on

BY TONY MACDONALD, TORONTO FIRE CAPTAIN (RETIRED)

Chuck Guy was born in Westminster B.C. in 1962. His father was an RCMP officer, and his mother worked for Royal Bank. He lived in Vancouver for five years, and then Nelson B.C. for the next three years. His dad was transferred to

Ottawa in 1971, and his family was there until 1979, when they moved to Toronto. The Chief Scout Award is the highest award which can be achieved at the Scout level in Scouts Canada. At age 15, Chuck was awarded the Chief Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of Canada. He began racing motocross in 1976, and raced for 16 years, the last 11 at the pro level. He raced in Supercross events in Montreal and Toronto, and represented Canada at the 1994 World 250cc Grand Prix in Unadilla, New York. After high school, from 1984 until 1988, Chuck worked at several motorcycle shops, and then worked in landscape construction. Another job he enjoyed was driving a Snowcat (grooming machine) for Blackcomb Mountain Ski Resort. A benefit that Chuck enjoyed was that this job allowed him to ski for more than 200 days in those two seasons. The North York Fire Department hired Chuck in September of 1988, and after his recruit training, he and Phil Bonanno were stationed at 112 on C platoon. Station 112 was a busy place that held a pumper, tower, PC, DC, Communications, Mechanical, and a runner’s van. A runner’s van was like an air light that responded to all fires, and also delivered items from stores, and firefighter pay cheques to all 18 North York fire stations. Chuck says, “As the junior men, we would usually be sent to pick up the lunch order. Twenty orders of fish and chips or hamburgers and ‘don’t get it wrong’! Back then, our gear was the thigh high rubber boots, three-quarter length petch coat, rubber gloves in the summer or ‘fireballs’ in the winter, and a helmet with earflaps. It was a good experience starting at that station, as I quickly got to know everyone on my platoon when I was assigned on the runner’s van.”

on Chuck Guy

“Occasionally, when communications was short on staffing, I would have to do a shift ‘in the box’. I learned a different aspect of the job and the responsibility involved when taking a call and making sure you got it right. As a rookie, I didn’t like sending my crew to a working fire when I was stuck in comms.”

Chuck was relocated to the newly built Station 114 in 1989, and then to Station 143 in 1990, where he returned to working with Phil again. The last tail board truck that North York had was occasionally in that station. “I don’t know how the old guys rode that for years in the winter with the cold and the spray from the salt.”

North York ran two Squads, and one was at Station 143. The Squad also handled Haz-Mat responsibilities back then. Squad 143 ran all highrise, commercial, and industrial alarms, stuck elevators, vehicle accidents, and all fires on the west side of North York. “Back then, vehicles were not designed the way they are today, so arriving at an accident scene to find occupants trapped was more common. We used the extrication tools a lot. You didn’t get to ride on the Squad until you could handle all of the equipment properly. My Squad Captain was Mike Evans, who is still one of my best friends to this day. I learned a lot from Mike. He is a great fire fighter and Squad Captain.” Chuck eventually became the Acting Captain on the Squad on C Platoon, and then after his promotion to Captain, he worked his way back to becoming the Captain of Squad 143 on B Platoon.

Chuck began doing tree removal work for a landscaping company in 1984, and has been doing that work ever since. He slowly built up to owning his own tree removal company. Chuck continues to take courses learning the business of bringing down trees safely.

In 2015, a mutual aid request was made to Toronto Fire. Chuck, Chris Rowland, a P143 crew, and a S143 crew were sent to Clearview Township. They were asked to assist Clearview and Barrie fire departments with the rescue of an individual who was 50 feet down at the bottom of a crevasse. Chuck, being a thinner member of the team, found himself along with firefighters Bryan Moore and Tim McDonald, taking turns hanging inverted from a rope. Their job was to hang upside down and chip away at the limestone walls with a pneumatic chisel to widen the path for the trapped individual. “The walls of the crevasse were so tight that if you didn’t turn your head sideways, your helmet would get stuck.”

“Over the years, I’ve worked with some amazing people and found that, for the most part, the people that gravitated toward the Squad stations went there to be busy. We enjoy being busy, helping get the job done and being ready for the next call. We are good at our jobs because we do it a lot. Either in training for technical rescue, or at fire calls. Lately, we’ve lost approximately 50% of our call volume, as we no longer run most alarm calls. An alarm can mean a fire, and we want to be there from the start of the incident. I feel that in the future we will lose some great people to busier stations.”

From 1995 to 1998, Chuck was the editor of the North York Firefighters Association’s newsletter ‘Smoke Signals’ and loved this experience.

After amalgamation, when the STI program started, Chuck took every course that was available to him. He was assigned as a “tools” STI, and he was able to take almost every STI course. He was trained as an STI in all technical rescue attributes, and marine firefighting for land based firefighters. He was also a RIT instructor for several years while on C Platoon.

“I was fortunate to be selected as one of the first group of HUSAR instructors back in the fall of 2002. Eight firefighters, two paramedics, two police officers, and one person from Toronto Works were sent to Vancouver to take the Structural Collapse Rescue Systems 1. We were then sent to Texas A&M for Rescue Systems 2.

In July 2010, the HUSAR Instructors Group attended the Manitoba Emergency Services College to get our IFSAC and Proboard certification as structural collapse instructors and to help develop a national training program for the Canadian HUSAR teams.”

“Chris Rowland and I are the only instructors that remain from that original group. We have been on most of the deployments that CAN-TF3 has gone to.”

Currently, on the HUSAR team, Chuck is a Rescue Squad Leader and a Lead

Instructor.

Chuck, and the rest of the Instructor Group, have been involved in all the design and setup of Ontario’s provincial and national HUSAR disaster scenarios. They have been invited as evaluators for one of British Columbia’s provincial disaster exercises, as well as a US FEMA/Homeland disaster exercise held in Illinois in 2019. They have trained the instructors from the provincial Light Urban Search and Rescue teams located in Windsor, Thunder Bay and Ottawa, as well as the Montreal team. “During our deployment to the Goderich tornado in 2011, I was assigned as Rescue Squad Leader for the recovery of the operator of the massive salt mine conveyor, used to load the ships. Working with Ontario Mine Rescue crews and the Ministry of Labour, and using four large cranes, we were able to successfully complete our assignment just ten minutes prior to the 8:00 pm cut off time imposed by the Ministry of Labour.” In the past, CAN-TF3 has done logistical support for EMAT (Ontario’s Emergency Medical Assistance Team) and Chuck has been involved with their deployment to the G8, Canada’s 150 year celebration in Ottawa, and assistance with the indigenous people displacement due to the northern Ontario fires in 2011. “During our deployment to the Elliot Lake mall collapse in 2012, I was assigned as the Rescue Squad Leader for the day shift of rescuers. The team took a beating in the media, but as a team, we learned from that. The guys on the ground did a phenomenal job to accomplish what was asked of them. Several years ago, Chuck obtained his 0-9 ton crane operators certificate, primarily for his tree removal work, but he also found it helpful because HUSAR teams are also trained to move debris and heavy items with a crane, if one is available. In the fall of 2019, he was invited to attend Ohio TF1’s HERS (Heavy Equipment Rigging Specialist) course. “After amalgamation, we were supposed to run with four trained people on the Squad, but that was rarely the case. Often, the Squad, Hazmat, and Aerial vehicles were run with only three. Our training requires trained people performing many specific tasks at technical rescue incidents. We were told not to worry, since another Squad and the two Squad support vehicles would attend every technical rescue incident.” “On July 13, 2013, Toronto was experiencing flooding. A record breaking 123mm of rain fell in a few hours. The previous single day record was set in 1954, when hurricane Hazel hit Toronto. Most of the trucks in the city were running their wheels off. There was a GO Train loaded with passengers that had stalled in the Don Valley and was filling with water. Several Squads and their support pumpers were at that event. Squad 143 was dispatched to a report of people trapped in Black Creek. We arrived to find five people stranded in a tree or holding onto the trunk of the tree in the thigh high fast moving

water. Water moving that fast will knock a person off their feet and sweep them downstream.”

“With just three trained people and the assistance of a pumper and aerial crew, we managed to set up a high line. With the high line, we could tow our inflatable rescue craft (RDC) across the rushing water to above tree level, lower it to the tree, and then, one by one, we rescued the people and brought them back to shore. A fourth person on the truck would have definitely helped us stay within our training protocols. Fortunately, today, all specialty vehicles are run with a minimum of four people.”

“In 2015, I attended a trench technician’s class at MUSARs training centre in Howell Michigan. This included live trenches, T-shaped trenches, L-shaped trenches and 16-foot deep wall trenches. It was quite an eye opener and I learned a ton, including new techniques, different equipment, and a better understanding of working in live soil. As much as I enjoyed structural collapse, I liked trench just as much. Michigan is the place to learn trench. They are, by far, the world leaders. I returned a number of times to take courses. Some were Paratech’s “Trench University”, which is two days of trench learning, and MUSAR’s “Trench Symposium” which is five days of new trench techniques and testing systems. They would push systems to their limits, break those systems, and then read the load cells to see if the systems withstood a 2:1 safety factor. They would also design new techniques to improve safety or performance.”

MUSAR offered Chuck a trench instructor’s position. Now he assists in the instruction of trench training in Michigan at least twice a year, although Covid-19 forced him to miss all of 2019 and half of 2020. With his experience with MUSAR’s trench instructors group and the engineers who assist them, Chuck was able to develop a new trench operations program for TFS. Currently, they only offer instruction in the concrete trench prop, but he hopes that they will eventually be able to train in a live trench. There are approximately 265 members who need this training. Approximately half of them have now received this new program.

For the past four years, before Covid-19, Chuck has assisted with a crane climber’s course in Philadelphia. It’s a course that instructs arborists on the safe removal of trees using cranes. They teach estimating weights, balancing of loads, and cutting techniques. This past year, he was an instructor for a similar course that was offered in Ontario.

“Last November, I attended a ‘Rescue from Trees’ course in New Hampshire. It is a course that instructs first responders how to rescue arborists, hunters, paragliders and others from trees. Talk about blending my two worlds!”

Chuck has been with his wife Michelle since becoming a firefighter. They couldn’t be more proud of their two children. Their daughter is a Doctor in the Canadian Armed Forces and their son is currently taking his PhD in Chemistry.

It is a strange coincidence that his badge number is 1670 because it is the number for NFPA’s Standard that governs technical rescue operations and training.

“Early in my career, I was bitten with the “learning bug”. I wanted to learn as much as I could on all aspects of technical rescue. That passion still continues to this day. The knowledge that I’ve gained does not help much if I keep it to myself. I believe it is to be shared. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to follow this passion with Toronto Fire. I spend a lot of my time and money on continual learning. Technical rescue is a hobby of mine. Some people golf, I hang off rope and play in trenches.”

Chuck is happy to say that Phil Bonanno has been back working with him as the Captain of the pump at 143 for the last two years. Everyone who has worked alongside of Chuck would agree that he is a treasure trove of knowledge and abilities for Toronto Fire. If you want the impossible done safely and quickly, Chuck is the person to call.