Harold Tulk, the former fire chief of Brockville and Kingston, is being remembered as a consummate firefighter and “hall-of-famer” in the arena of public safety.
Tulk died suddenly at Brockville General Hospital on Sept. 19, at the age of 76 years. His funeral was held in Brockville last Saturday (Sept. 28).
“Anyone who knew Harold, knew that when he put on the uniform, he stood a foot taller,” Tulk’s longtime colleague and friend, retired firefighter Art Pullan, said in delivering his eulogy.
That eulogy also included a quote from retired Ontario Fire Marshal Bernard Moyle, another friend of Tulk’s: “The names of people like Harold Tulk, who have made significant contributions to firefighter and public safety, will fade over time, but their contributions will continue to reduce tragedies for many years to come.”
“He was a revered member of the fire service for a long time,” Pullan said in an interview this week.
A native of Toronto’s Leaside Park area, Tulk went off to Newfoundland in his teens to join the Royal Canadian Navy.
Returning to Brockville to be close to his mother, he joined the Brockville Fire Department in 1970, beginning a career in the fire service that spanned more than 40 years. Tulk rose to the rank of captain in 1977.
Tulk and Pullan worked on the same shift for those first few years, before taking different paths in the service, with Tulk continuing in frontline firefighting while Pullan went in the direction of fire inspections and prevention.
“He excelled. He pushed other firefighters in a good way,” Pullan recalled.
“Many will tell you he had a photographic memory.”
The latter, said Pullan, would be of great service to Tulk, a voracious reader who kept up on all the innovations in the fields of firefighting and fire safety.
“On the fire safety highway, Harold could see around the bend before he got there,” said Pullan.
In 1980, Tulk left the Brockville fire service to join the Office of the Fire Marshal as a provincial adviser. He returned to Brockville in 1984 to become the city’s fire chief, a position he held until 2002, when he became chief in Kingston.
When he took over the reins in Brockville, “we had the highest fire death rate per capita in all of Ontario,” Pullan recalled, with 18 fatalities in 10 separate fires from 1975 through 1984.
“Harold came back and he said: ‘You know, we have to change the direction here.'”
Tulk put in place policies and procedures that reduced that grim count to but a single fire fatality over the next 10 years, added Pullan.
They included a school-based program, “Learn Not To Burn,” so successful that it was adopted first by the provincial fire marshal’s office, and then nationwide through a $1-million grant from the Canadian Tire Child Protection Foundation, known today as Jump Start, said Pullan.
“We kind of became a leader in the public education arena,” he added.
Tulk served as president of the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs from 1992 to 1997, supporting the passing of the Fire Protection and Prevention Act (FPPA) in 1997.
In fact, said Pullan, Tulk’s fingerprints are on a great many fire safety measures and initiatives that have made the whole province safer, including the move to make smoke alarms mandatory.
Kingston recruited Tulk to lead its fire department in 2002, in part for his skills and background in fire policy and organization. At the time, Tulk was to lead Kingston’s professional and volunteer fire service, following the amalgamation of Kingston with surrounding townships.
Tulk retired from the fire service in 2012, the same year he received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his significant contributions in fire service for the public good.
In his eulogy, Pullan referred to Tulk as one of “the change makers.”
“The ones who, if our profession were a sport, would be considered hall of famers,” he added. “And if there were a hall of achievements for change makers in our profession, for those who stood a cut above the rest in advocating for public and firefighter health and safety and the common good of others, Harold Tulk’s name would be in it for certain.”
Harold Tulk is survived by his wife Susan (Empey) Tulk, son Mark Tulk, daughter Lindsay Archibald (Lenny) and grandchildren Alexandra, Cameron and Ronin.
In memoriam donations to the Rotary Club of Gananoque or the Ontario SPCA’s Leeds and Grenville chapter would be gratefully appreciated by his family.