One of the longest-serving firefighters in the Sables Spanish River Fire Department (SSRFD) is hanging up his helmet on May 30 after 52 years of fire and emergency service to the Sables Spanish River Township.
Steven Mailloux joined the service as a young man of 20 years. Mailloux is a life-long resident of rural Walford and has taken on many roles throughout the more than half a century of service since 1972.
During his tenure with the fire department, Mailloux contributed as a firefighter, trainer, and fire chief. Mailloux’s contribution to the community is not restricted to only the fire department. He has sat on several committees in the community and the surrounding area, including president of the Ag society, district director of Sudbury Soil and Crop, provincial director representing Sudbury, Algoma, and Manitoulin for Ontario Soil and Crop, and a director of the Manitoulin-North Shore Federation of Agriculture.
His involvement with the SSRFD spilled into working with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Emergency Management Service (EMS), the Ontario Fire Marshalls office, and the paramedics group under DSAB. All of whom recognize the years of experience Mailloux has garnered from his work with the SSRFD. Mailloux has had a profound and positive effect and made valuable contributions to many community organizations during his long career as a firefighter.
A fellow firefighter described Mailloux saying, “Steve is a respectful man and well respected, not just for what he’s seen but for what he has done over the years and how he did it.”
When Mailloux started as a firefighter he was first stationed in Walford, a small village west of Massey. At the time, he was working on the family farm on what is now called Mailloux Road, a long stretch of road running north off Highway 17. It’s an area of long-standing heritage family farms with an influx of Mennonite families in the past 20 years.
In 1972, there was no firehall in Walford; the fire truck was kept in the parking lot of a local restaurant.
“Gordon Wright who was our neighbour and the road supervisor when the municipality decided to form a fire department and asked him to take on the role of fire chief,” Mailloux said recently.
Wright and Mailloux, both farmers at the time had always harvested together each fall. Looking for volunteers, Wright asked the Mailloux brothers Jerome and Steve if they would join the new fire department as volunteers. They both signed on. Over the many years since the department was formed several members of the Mailloux family volunteered with the department. Like most of his family, Steve spent most of his working life as a dairy farmer along with a five-year-stretch working in the logging industry.
Looking back on his many years Mailloux recalled fighting major house fires when the temperature was sitting at around 30 below in the dead of winter. There were times firefighters spent 20 hours fighting a blaze in sub-zero temperatures to get it under control. When asked about his most memorable experience in firefighting, Mailloux said, “I don’t know if I can pick any one thing out, we’ve been out to so many house fires.”
SSRFD currently has 43 firefighters and four stations throughout the Township of Sables-Spanish Rivers, which provides the township with the security of trained volunteer first responders. Station 2 in Massey, Station 4 in Webbwood, and Station 5 in Shakespeare are managed by Assistant Chief Rejean Laronde. Station 1 in Walford is managed by Assistant Chief Jean Wuorinen. Chief Blair Ramsay oversees all four SSRFD stations.
When the amalgamation forming Sables Spanish River Township took place all of the local fire departments became one unit with stations in each of the four townships. After amalgamation “that’s where it took a lot of my time.”
When Rodney Houle took over as fire chief both he and Mailloux faced the task of organizing the four separate stations into one unit to cover the area. Upon Houle’s passing on May 30, 2015, Mailloux took over the chief’s role for three years.
“I think we always tried to respect them (new recruits), I look at the young ones who came in and we looked to see what they had to bring, their background and we gave them the opportunity to learn.”
Mailloux spent many years as a captain on the force and was involved in recruiting new members. During his service as a firefighter, Mailloux has had a deep and positive effect instructing and developing firefighters. Fifty-two years of dedicating his life to help and serve others in harm’s way is an astonishing legacy the township is grateful for.
The SSRFD is always recruiting, people interested in serving their community as first responders can visit fire@sables-spanish.ca. for more information.