Vaughan fire chief takes service from 'doughnuts and pizza to salmon and kale'

Larry Bentley reflects on nearly 40 years in service, 5 years at top as he retires May 31

Yorkregion.com
May 8, 2018
Tim Kelly

 

Larry Bentley can remember the exact day that changed his perspective on the job.

Vaughan’s Fire and Emergency Services chief, who retires May 31 after nearly five years at the top and more than 38 years with the service, looks back to Feb. 26, 2001, as a fateful day.

“We almost lost the lives of seven firefighters,” Bentley, 63, recalled last week in an interview at the City of Vaughan’s Joint Operations Centre on Rutherford Road.

Bentley was heading up a team of firefighters battling a massive house blaze on Greenbrook Drive in Woodbridge in “a very large estate home of 12,000 square feet. It had some issues with the construction.” Bentley said in such situations, firefighters aren’t sure what they are getting into and in this one, there was a sudden building collapse and seven firefighters were trapped inside the burning building.

Four of the firefighters evacuated through the front door, but three could not get out, and Bentley thought they had died.

“It was awful,” he said, admitting his heart sunk at the thought.

However, the captain was able to find a window on the west side of the home and get the three firefighters to safety.

“It changed me a lot,” he said, after the incident was over.

“It just made me safer … I was leading a really aggressive group of firefighters, everybody thinks they’re the best and that’s a good thing … and we just thought we were the cat’s meow, but that just put it all into perspective for me. We were probably a little riskier some days than we should have been. A little more awareness, I know from that point on, my respect for their lives was enhanced,” Bentley said.

Born and raised in Woodbridge, Bentley has never really left, marrying and raising a family here and enjoying a long career that started when he was 25.

It began back on Dec. 7, 1979, his first day on the job.

“I never thought I’d be the fire chief, just thought I’d spend my whole career riding on the back of a fire truck. I never had any aspirations for that. Every time a door opened, I just walked through it,” he said.

He is proud of the many achievements the fire service has accomplished over the last decade or so in his time at or near the top.

“Our public education programs are second-to-none. We are the only fire service in the province that has a fully funded health and wellness service for its firefighters; our firefighters, get baseline and 30 blood tests to protect them from cancer. We have 19 trained fitness trainers, and we fitness assess them after they go to a physician.”

“There used to be a lot of doughnuts and pizza, now there is a lot of salmon and kale,” he said.

The father of three, his oldest child Karen was tragically killed in a car accident on Highway 9 on May 3, 2005 at age 21, he has a son Gordon, 31, and a daughter, Lauren, 25.

Last weekend, Bentley, flew to Vancouver to compete in the marathon with Lauren.

The avid runner also collects muscle cars and plays golf, he and his wife, Fern travel, so he plans to be very busy in retirement.