Almost 36 years ago, Eric Arseneault began his career as a firefighter with the Moncton Fire Department.
On November 22nd, he will officially retire from his role as Chief of the department.
It was February 7th, 1983 Eric Arseneault spent his first day on the job.
In 1994, he moved into Management and in 2002, he was promoted to Chief.
He has many memories, of fires in the City, but one in particular sticks in his mind. It was a large tire fire on Mill Road in 2007, with a large plume of black smoke and fire.
“That one was memorable, because my daughter was going to the daycare across the street, and she was there while the fire was burning. I had two stresses that day. One as a father and the other as a Chief. So that fire will always be memorable because it brought about a lot of emotions, but also because of how well the fire department performed under the leadership of Deputy Chief McCabe. That fire was brought under control very, very quickly.”
As a Chief, Arseneault took on a lot of other responsibilities, but you would often find him on scene of some of the bigger fires in Moncton, “More to be a presence to support the Chief Officers that were running operations. I also positioned myself to be the main point of contact for the media so that the right message was being communicated in regards to our operations.”
Arseneault says when you have been a Public Servant for thirty plus years, it is very hard to quit cold turkey, “There is always something that you want to do, whether it is finding a new career or becoming a very active volunteer in your community. Typically, I think that is what you see, if people feel the need to continue giving back and if they are not doing it in another line of work, they become very active volunteers.”
The Chief says his initial plan is to look after his health, but after that he would like to get into some Consulting work, “I have taken on some responsibilities over the years for emergency planning, and I think I would like to work with communities to make them more resilient, better prepared for whatever they may face. I think I still may have some things to give back to the community and that is an area I would like to explore.”
