After 42 years Glenn Williams knew it was time.

But he joked about retiring and handing over the Chief Fire Officer’s helmet. He told his deputy: “You know it’s a good time to go when only two people in the fire station hate you and not the whole 32”.

He was kidding of course. This is a man who gave 42 years’ service to the volunteer fire brigade, championed the cause of thousands of firefighters as president of the United Fire Brigades Association and rose to the rank of chief fire officer at the Te Puke Fire Station.

He carries mana.

“After a professional career, then 30 years in business, my wife always says what has given me the most fulfilment, the most pleasure, is the thing I have done for nothing.”

Glenn Williams surrounded by the trappings of a volunteer fire station. Photo: John Borren.

The essential volunteer fireman – 20 hours a week covering admin, training night every Wednesday, call-outs, slave to a wailing firehouse siren, often in the dead of night – and not one minute, not one second of it paid.

“I just got paid in other ways.”

Saving a building, saving property, saving a life has got to count for something.

Fire station fabric

And no – he never once thought he could have put that time to better use. On a golf course, fishing, gardening.

“No – never, not once.”

That could explain something. Because despite retiring from the Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade last week, he still has keys to the kingdom. He’s wearing his Te Puke Fire Brigade centennial shirt like a second skin, and there’s that life honorary membership. He’s woven into the fire station fabric.

“Once firefighting is in your blood, it’s forever.”

It’s definitely in the DNA – because Dan, his university student son, is a volunteer firemen at Portobello in Dunedin. It’s not immediately clear whether Dad is more proud of Dan’s PhD in Marine Sciences or 10 years as a volunteer fireman.

Glenn can laugh about it.

Every fireman has a cat up a tree yarn and that’s another laugh. The cat was stuck up a conifer, probably a Norfolk pine.

“We couldn’t get a ladder to it, so we put a line around the trunk, bent it back, let it go and the cat catapulted out of the tree.”

It sailed over the rescue blanket, hit the ground and wandered groggily off. Not a meow of ‘thanks’. Ungrateful cat.

Glenn Williams surrounded by the trappings of a volunteer fire station. Photo: John Borren.

Funny – but the story doesn’t reflect the true contribution this brigade makes. So far this year, 232 call-outs, nearly one a day. The tally’s up there on the front of the fire house for all to see. It’ll be 300-plus by year’s end. Amongst the busiest five per cent of volunteer stations in the country.

“Not so many house fires these days because of the work done on fire safety.”

Good job. But there’s still a lot of work.

“Medical work that’s not always well received by the old hands – the long serving guys – they say they didn’t join up to be medics, they joined to be firefighters.”

Just two weeks ago the four-decade vet was pumping the chest of an elderly cardiac arrest victim.

“When our truck turns up at a medical incident it means another four guys to rotate the physically-demanding CPR.” 

But it’s going to be 10 minutes before the brigade gets here, so if the victim hasn’t been getting CPR, the chances of survival are low.

“We have the odd win, where we have managed to get them going again.”

But not this latest one. He didn’t make it. And Glenn is pragmatic about it.

“We just regard it as inevitable for most victims.”

The 1964 Leyland Albion, which Glenn Williams got to drive during his time at the Mount Maunganui Fire Station. Photo: Supplied.

An impact

But it’s stressful and it does have an impact. Of course it does. Glen takes it home and dwells on it on the pillow at night.

“It’s someone’s loved one. Could have been one of our own family. Could have things turned out differently?”

For the bigger, nastier events the brigade has formal debriefings where they bring in peer support people to assist firemen emotionally through their diet of death and destruction.

“The one’s I worry about are the young ones who brush it off, ‘not a problem’ or ‘I can handle it’, the ‘harden up’ guys.”

Glenn has no such pretension, he carries emotional scars – some from 29 year ago. The story comes with a firefighter’s tears.

“See what I mean,” he says wiping his eyes.

There was a fatal crash about 2am one weekday morning on a long straight stretch of Te Puke Highway locally known as Long Swamp. A truck had gone over the top of a car carrying two adults and two children.

“It ripped the roof off the car. The little boy had been thrown onto the road. He was dead. The little girl was dead in the back seat of the car.”

The little girl was the same age as Glenn’s daughter at the time. That’s the trigger for a fireman’s tears.

“I just remember it so vividly. Just because of those two kids. All we could do is stand around and wait for the undertaker to come and taken them away.”

Glenn probably gave his own kids a big hug next morning.

“For three weeks, every night before I fell asleep, it all came flooding back.”

But he reckons it only becomes a problem if it’s still troubling a month later.

There was also the time a knife-wielding bloke chased the fireman when he turned up at a caravan fire.

“The guys reckon they’d never seen me run so fast. The knife man had set fire to his ex’s caravan and he didn’t want us to put it out. He was upset.”

That’s not what the fireman signed up for.

Two generations of volunteer firefighters: The proud retired chief fire officer Glenn Williams and his son, Dan. Photo: supplied.

Glenn’s hook

Perhaps they could have retired Glenn’s hook from service at the Te Puke Fire Station, the one where he hung his bunker coat and where his boots and leggings sat at the ready, the hook right beside the big bright red pump appliance.

After all they retired Michael Jordan’s number 23 at the Chicago Bulls, and Daniel Vettori’s number 11 for the Blackcaps as a nod to their service.

But there’s another bunker coat on the Chief Fire Officer’s hook and it belongs to Glenn’s former deputy and the new CFO, Dale Lindsay.

“The brigade will be in the best of hands.”

The volunteer fireman’s days of unpaid service aren’t over. He was sworn in as a JP the day the Queen died. 

“I was told I was the first JP in the world to swear allegiance to the new King.”

Two generations of volunteer firefighters: The proud retired chief fire officer Glenn Williams and his son, Dan. Photo: supplied.