40 new firefighters can’t wait to finish training and start on the job in Mississauga
Published April 26, 2024 at 6:04 pm
Several dozen men and women have been spending many of their waking hours since February at a state-of-the-art training facility in the northwest end of Mississauga learning how to fight fires.
And how to save lives — and keep themselves and those working alongside them safe while doing so.
The 40 successful recruits made the final cut from among 1,175 applicants who first expressed interest last June and July in joining Mississauga Fire and Emergency services as front-line firefighters.
That’s no easy feat, say Mississauga senior fire officials, as the nearly 1,200 initial candidates all met the minimum qualifications to compete in the recruitment process.
Mississauga Fire Chief Deryn Rizzi said the 40 newest firefighters who’ll be deployed to various parts of Canada’s seventh-largest city once they complete the gruelling 17-week training course in the next couple of months are surely the cream of the latest crop.
She noted their collective achievement “in navigating through an incredibly competitive hiring process” is remarkable.
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“Their exceptional dedication, skill and perseverance set them apart,” Rizzi continued. “We are confident they will play a vital role in our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety and well-being of our community.”
As they prepare to soon join some 640 front-line firefighters already on the job in Mississauga, the latest recruits are soaking up as much knowledge as possible and learning a host of crucial life-saving skills each day at the Garry W. Morden Centre, a facility near highways 401 and 407 that offers diverse training to not only fledgling firefighters, but to police and other groups as well.
It’s an intense training program, fire officials say, that squeezes everything it can out of each day to best prepare young men and women to go to work daily — and come home at the end of their shifts — as top-drawer firefighters.
“Drilling every day makes great firefighters,” Mississauga fire officials said succinctly in a reference earlier this year to the training regimen.
Each new firefighter has their own story
They come from different backgrounds and each of the 40 recruits who’ll soon graduate the training program to become probationary firefighters has their own story.
But one thing, at least, they all share is a strong desire to help others — particularly those in harm’s way or in distress in any number of other scenarios.
Liam Stanfield, born and raised in Toronto, recalls growing up in a home that backed onto a fire station.
“We were often visitors (to the fire station) whether it be on a walk with my grandma or just because we were bored,” he said in an email sent to insauga.com in which he spoke about what compelled him to become a firefighter.
“I remember a day when my youngest brother stopped breathing and we had to call 911. (The firefighters) were there helping him before my mom had even hung up the phone with the operator,” Stanfield continued, adding he’s always respected the emergency responders for their “attitudes and willingness to help anyone, at any time, for any reason” and he soon after realized “this was the job for me.”
Twenty of the 40 firefighter recruits are shown here during a Firefighter Survival Program session. The other group of 20 completed that component of training in a separate session. (Photo: Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services X)
Skylar Schmidt, meanwhile, got his start working as a volunteer firefighter in his Ontario hometown after having worked in both “exploration geology” and more recently the automotive industry.
“Being able to volunteer with my community as a firefighter further affirmed this was the job for me,” he said, adding he first chose to fight fires “because of my passion for helping people. In any job I had prior to this, my favourite part was always helping anyone who needed it.”
Volunteer firefighting in her hometown was also where Rachel VanGeel caught the desire to pursue the line of work full-time.
“I joined as I was looking for a meaningful way to give back to my community and to keep up my medical skills I had gained throughout prior volunteer experiences within the Canadian Coast Guard and St. John Ambulance,” she explained, adding it was about three weeks into the recruiting process in Mississauga when she knew firefighting was her calling. “I always knew I was different in how I handled emergencies, my general outlook on life and how I process information and now I finally knew why. I am naturally the calm in the storm when working through a crisis and as a firefighter I have the unique opportunity to use this gift of a calm presence along with my troubleshooting skills and never-give-up attitude to support those in the middle of their emergency…there is no career more rewarding than that.”
For Mateusz Jach, he vividly recalls visiting a fire station as a child with his troop of cub scouts. Beyond being “in awe of the trucks and the cool tools,” he said he’s never forgotten the kindness of the firefighters he met.
“Most importantly, I remember how the firefighters on shift made me feel like I was the most important person in the room. The way they took the time to educate and focus on a little boy who was in full admiration, not brushing me off as an annoying kid, has always stuck with me.”
The new firefighters had to practice their skills with Aerial 101 to ensure they are fully competent in accurately placing rescue ladders exactly where they’re needed. (Photos: Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services X)
Megan Maniezzo says she was inspired to become a firefighter by those in her family, including her father, who’ve done the job before her. After a stint as a volunteer firefighter in Caledon, she found her way to Mississauga.
“I’m the third generation of firefighters and I’m very excited to have had the opportunity” to join the ranks in Mississauga “to follow in their footsteps,” she said, adding it was a go-to-work-with-your-dad day in Grade 9 that clinched her career decision.
“As a kid, I always thought my dad had the most exciting job. His coworkers were like family and he loved what he did.”
And there are many other stories, both similar to these and a bit different, to be told by the latest class of recruits.
Another of the rookie firefighters helped save the life of an injured coworker as a teen while working as a lifeguard, from that point forward knowing what he wanted to do.
20 of the recruits will work out of a new fire station
Yet another recently worked as an apprentice electrician before taking a serious look at firefighting while one of their classmates these last couple of months in Mississauga had no idea what career they wanted to pursue until a conversation with their father.
“I didn’t know exactly what (I wanted to do) until my dad told me if he could go back and do it all over again, he would be a firefighter, and that’s where this idea was sparked.”
Upon finishing the training course sometime in the next couple of months, 20 of the recruits will move on to staff one of the city’s new fire stations, officials say.
They’ll comprise the four five-member platoons to work out of Fire Station 125, slated to open this year at Tenth Line and Aquitaine Avenue in Meadowvale.
The other half of the graduating class of probationary firefighters will fill positions lost to retirements and members leaving the Mississauga fire department to work elsewhere.
The new hires (5th class or probationary firefighters) will earn an annual salary of $65,416 out of the gate and must subsequently pass classification exams each year in order to climb the ranks to 1st class firefighter ($109,026 salary).
(Cover photo: Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services)
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