Josh Turner’s decade-long journey with the Cambridge Fire Department started long before he donned the uniform.
“I was like every kid coming out of high school. I was searching for something to do. I knew I didn’t want to do a trade that didn’t really inspire me,” he said.
So, when Turner’s sister, Charlene Elkington came across a job posting for firefighting and suggested he look into it, the idea of public service appealed to him.
He enrolled in Conestoga College’s police foundations program, a prerequisite for their highly competitive pre-service fire program.
“It took me maybe four years just to get into the program, and then I completed the program over the year and a half and then it was another four years until I got hired. It’s been a process,” he said.
Turner, now 38, joined the fire department at 27. He said he will never forget the moment when he received the call in 2014 telling him he was joining the department.
“There were more than 1,000 and only three of us got hired,” he said. “It was incredible to see all the work I put in finally pay off.”
Working 24-hour shifts often means missing holidays and weekends with his wife and two young children, aged five and four.
“Sometimes I’m coming home in the morning just as my wife is leaving for work. There’s a lot of hot-potatoing the kids between us.”
“Calls affect you differently as you age,” he said. “When I see younger patients now, I think of my own kids. It changes how you see things.”
“It’s not your typical 9 to 5,” he said
“The standard is coming in and getting all of our gear ready, checking all of our safety equipment, our truck, medical supplies, all that stuff,” he said.
“From then on out, any calls that come in, you’re obviously going to go on, but then all the space in between those calls is to make yourself better.”
For the past three years, Turner has dedicated himself to professional development, completing fire college courses to become a certified fire educator, inspector, instructor, and officer. He is now preparing for his acting captain exams, scheduled for March 2025.
He said firefighters become like a second family.
“We’re attached at the hip and for long periods of 24-hour shifts every couple of days,” he said. “You get to know their wives and kids and they get to know yours.”
For Turner, the most rewarding part of his job is giving back to the community.
“You get a deeper knowledge of what community is and even make a difference with some of the issues it faces,” he said.
Beyond his firefighting duties, Turner participates in community events organized by the Cambridge Professional Firefighters Association. He’s been involved in the Santa Claus and Canada Day parades, the annual muscular dystrophy boot drive and the basket fund.
“The basket fund has been happening in Cambridge for 105 years — for an unbelievably long time,” Turner said.
Every year, Turner and his sisters also organize the annual Hespeler Village Music Festival in July.
“I have a very public-centred family, I guess. My dad started as a letter carrier for Canada Post many, many years ago and was very community-centred,” he said.
“You’re in the community that you were born, raised, work in, and still connect with.”