For the Harnum family from Bishop’s Falls, firefighting is not just a career or a way to help their community. It’s also in their blood.
Starting with Harry Harnum, one of the founders of the town’s volunteer fire department, established in 1962, three generations of Harnums have donned their firefighting gear and headed out to fight blazes.
Harry’s sons, Ed, Gary, and Craig, along with Ed’s two sons, Steve and Tyler, are all firefighters, either as volunteers or as a way to earn their livelihoods.
Steve Harnum says he never wanted to be anything but a fireman.
“I was that kid that drew fire trucks in kindergarten and Grade 1 and put them on the wall. And I was fortunate enough that I got to live out my childhood dream,” said Steve.
Today, Steve is a lieutenant with the Conception Bay South Fire Department, and his brother, Tyler, is a firefighter at St. John’s International Airport.
Their dad, Ed, is rightfully proud of his two boys, who’ve chosen to follow in his and their grandfather’s “boot”-steps.
“Proud Dad, proud firefighter, put it that way,” said Ed, who is deputy chief of the Bishop’s Falls Fire Department. “It’s rewarding because they follow in my steps and I know that they’re going to do the best that they can.”
High calling
But firefighting is not for the faint of heart, and all the Harnum men say that their patriarch, Harry, who died in 2017, set the bar high when it comes to how a firefighter serving their community should conduct themselves.
Ed Harnum was the first of Harry’s sons to join the ranks of the Bishop’s Falls volunteer fire department.
“We grew up with it so, when I turned 17, I wanted to get in the fire department, and help out the people of Bishop’s Falls,” said Ed.
But, as long-time chief of the fire department, Harry Harnum’s standards were so high that even his own son, Gary, wasn’t accepted as a firefighter the first or even the second time he applied.
Gary said his father figured that he enjoyed being on the go too much, and that he might not be around to respond to a call, but the time came when his father was satisfied that the young man could indeed handle the responsibility after all.
“He never showed no favor because you were his son, even on a fire scene. If he wanted you to do dirty work, pick up hose, and clean hose, you done it the same as everybody else. There was no favour shown,” said Gary, who is now chief of the Bishop’s Falls Fire Department his father helped to establish.
Steve echoes that sentiment about the high standards his grandfather had when it came to firefighting. Steve bases that opinion on his own stint as a volunteer firefighter back home in Bishop’s Falls serving under his grandfather as his fire chief.
“He was a man of few words, but his look said it all to me. He had the respect of everybody. He was extremely fair. But he could be stern when he needed to be,” said Steve.
Steve said that’s the kind of firefighter he also tries to be, following his grandfather’s and father’s examples.
Special breed
All the Harnum men agree that the work of a firefighter is challenging, and puts them literally in the line of fire.
“It’s somebody else’s misery that we got to go and try to straighten out,” said Ed. “You get a call 3 o’clock in the morning, and you go out through your door, and look up the road, and see a blaze in the sky, you know what you’re going to face. And you got to have a good body and a good nerve for it.”
Craig, who is currently assistant deputy fire chief with the Fredericton Fire Department in New Brunswick, said it’s really hard to know that, sometimes, in spite of best efforts, he won’t be able to set things right.
“I think the challenging things are when you give everything you’ve got, but yet you can’t reverse the outcome, a loss of life, a loss of property,” said Craig.
After responding to fires throughout his career, Craig said one of the things that still bothers him most is having to tell a child that their pet has not survived a fire, and seeing the disappointment in the child’s face.
Gary said one of the things that has changed over the years is that there’s now much more of an emphasis on providing help to firefighters who’ve witnessed and experienced trauma as a result of their work.
“Years ago, there was no critical stress management after the fire call. You got out, you seen some horrific sights, and you just come home, I guess, and dealt with it internally. But now there’s help for firefighters,” said Gary.
Perhaps being fully aware of the stresses that came with the job was why Harry Harnum didn’t necessarily want or expect his children to become firefighters.
“Dad never discouraged us in any way but, unlike some people would think, me personally, he never overly encouraged me either,” said Craig.
All the men agree that their father never pushed them to become firefighters but that he was certainly proud of their choice to serve their community as first responders.
“He was a demanding fire chief. He made it quite clear when we joined, it wasn’t just getting a pager and a t-shirt, he set expectations,” recalls Craig.
“We were brought up: when you make this level of commitment, you have it for the rest of your life.”
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