Sundridge has hired a familiar face to be its new fire chief.
It's Grant Love, the retired North Bay fire chief.
"For us he's running the department," Mayor Lyle Hall said.
"We offered holiday time and the ability to set his own schedule, which he seemed to welcome. We're happy and excited to have him on board."
The Sundridge department is a volunteer group which poses different challenges from the full-time firefighters Love is used to.
"The biggest difference is the fact you are dealing with people who volunteer their time and have a full-time job somewhere else and not knowing how many people will be showing up to a call," Love told BayToday. "But it's not their fault they might not be coming, or may be late coming."
But Love says there are also similarities.
"There are still chemicals being transported past here, there's automobile accidents, there's structure fires, there's burning complaints and fire prevention issues, it's just on a different scale."
Love admits to missing the fire business.
"Ya definitely. I thought, 'I want to give back somehow'. I've got a couple of more years before my wife retires and I thought it would be a good time to get back as close to the locale as I can, and I've been involved with the mutual aid group with a number of volunteer fire departments in the area so it just made sense to give back to one of the local departments."
