Lorianne Zwicker said becoming a firefighter was a way for her to keep on educating others.
Once an English teacher in Quebec, she said she wanted to find an alternative line of employment as a single mother where a strike could not potentially impact her. She decided to take a suggestion to get into the fire service, getting her qualifications at Seneca College and then going onto the Toronto Fire Services.
Now, Zwicker has climbed the ranks as a deputy chief with Central York Fire Services serving Newmarket and Aurora — and was named the Fire Chief of the Year by the Ontario Municipal Fire Prevention Officers Association in May.
“I'm still a bit humbled,” she said, adding that all fire chiefs work hard in their roles. “There’s a lot that gets done, and so to be recognized as the fire chief of the year, and being recognized for what we’re doing here at Central York, I’m very honoured.”
The award goes to a chief who made significant contributions to fire prevention, community risk and public education. Zwicker earned the award for initiatives including the development of a new live data community risk assessment, a national research project on smoke alarm non-compliance and adding compliance checks to the annual Stay Fire Smart program.
Zwicker joined Central York Fire Services in January, coming in from the deputy position at Georgina Fire and Rescue Services. She has also served with the Barrie and Toronto Fire Services and has taught at the Ontario Fire College and Seneca College.
She said getting the chance to educate others has been a big part of why she has continued to stay with the fire services.
“I can still teach, and I still do teach,” she said. “It’s the people that keep me here, and my team … I know the work that they’re doing and the changes that we’re making now are going to make huge changes in the behaviour.”
Central York Fire Services congratulated Zwicker on the achievement.
“Chief Zwicker has consistently demonstrated her commitment to fire and life safety initiatives—empowering her team and engaging the public to reduce risk and save lives,” the fire department said on social media after the recognition.
“Right from the top down, we have incredible mayors, the CAOs, the staff, and they’re so supportive,” Zwicker said. “It makes this a very rewarding position.”
Fire departments all do community risk assessments to analyze the risks of fire in the community. The live data version from Zwicker goes a step further, incorporating more live data to be constantly available and allowing the fire department to be more proactive, she said.
Another major initiative is her research project trying to analyze and survey why people let smoke alarms lapse. She said it is similar to buckling up a seatbelt – a safety action that can save your life that is legally required — but even though the same is true for smoke alarms, more people lapse in taking care of them.
“We need to know the why. Why are people buckling up but they’re not testing the smoke alarm,” she asked, adding that they will take results to upcoming conferences and look to get more data from municipalities across Canada. “We need to understand why they’re not maintaining and what can we do differently to get the message out.”
To that end, the town will be doing compliance checks as part of its annual Stay Fire Smart Campaign, running from June 23 to the end of September. Every year throughout the summer, crews visit homes to knock on doors and remind residents about the requirement to check smoke alarms.
Zwicker said this year that they will check more homes that said that they were not monitoring their smoke alarms last year to see how much behaviour has changed through their efforts.