Fire Chief Matthew Pegg is leading Toronto’s emergency response to COVID-19. It’s like no fire he’s ever fought

Thestar.com
March 30, 2020
Francine Kopun

We don’t shake hands.

The health of the man in charge of the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is paramount, and besides, shaking hands would violate the rules set by Toronto Public Health, requiring people to remain two metres apart to avoid transmitting the virus that as of Sunday had killed more than 33,000 people worldwide.

Matthew Pegg is congenial, and it seems unsettling to him not to be able to extend his goodwill in the personable fashion that helped him rise through the ranks of Toronto Fire Services to become chief, the only member of the agency bearing five stripes on his epaulettes.

We speak across a conference table designed to comfortably seat 10. There are five of us in the room.

He has brought an organizational chart with him, to explain how a civilian squadron has been mobilized to help fight what amounts to the biggest threat the city has ever faced, the biggest fire he has ever fought.

Mayor John Tory and city manager Chris Murray are at the top of the chart. Until Thursday, Tory had for two weeks been fighting the battle from his downtown condo, in isolation after returning from international travel.

Below Tory and Murray are Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, who has been anchoring daily press conferences at city hall, and Pegg, whose title at the Emergency Operations Centre is incident commander. De Villa and Pegg are on equal footing on the organizational chart, but there is no doubt who is directing the actions that have been taken over the past days and weeks.

“We all know this is a public health emergency, so Dr. de Villa and the public health team are the principal leaders and the principal point of expertise,” said Pegg. “The rest of this whole organization exists for the purposes of translating the advice, the guidance, the direction and recommendations that Dr. de Villa provides and turning that into action.”

There are four divisions.

The operations chief is in charge of public health, police, fire and paramedics, emergency social services, engineering and utilities.

The planning division maintains a constant situational awareness, keeping tabs on what is going on in the city, provincially, federally and globally. The division is responsible for resource management and logging all activities. The division will also be responsible for demobilization and recovery, once the pandemic ends.

“We can’t just flip the switch and turn everything back on. It has to be done methodically and in a reasonable manner,” said Pegg. “So there’s a lot of planning going on in that world; that happens under the planning section chief.”

The logistics division includes information and technology, which have become critical in a pandemic that is being fought from home offices around the city as people engage in social distancing to avoid becoming infected by the virus causing COVID-19.

“I don’t think we will ever -- we’ll never overstate how critical a role our technical folks are playing in this situation,” said Pegg. “When you just think of how many staff we have working remotely and what our utter reliance is on effective and efficient technology, there’s a big piece there.”

The logistics chief is also in charge of supply chain and transportation, which includes, for example, arranging the transportation of people in the shelter system who are ill.

The finance and administration group is in charge of personnel and procurement, including personal protective equipment for front-line city workers.

“This is the same process, the same system, that happens inside a mobile command unit at a significant fire. It’s the same thing that happens literally thousands of times a year on our streets that our firefighters and medics and police officers are putting in place -- of course, this is just much, much bigger,” Pegg said.

The Emergency Operations Centre was initially staffed by people working closely together at an undisclosed location, but these days meetings are conducted by phone, multiple times a day. At around 2 p.m., planning for the daily 3:45 press conference begins -- keeping the public informed is critically important, Pegg said.

Murray asked Pegg in January if he would take on the responsibility of leading the city’s planning and response to the coronavirus outbreak.

“Initially the overwhelming majority of that work was planning. Two or three weeks later, public health was talking about realizing that the spread is associated with travel, and then things escalated from there,” said Pegg.

“I have never seen a situation change or evolve as quickly as this has. I don’t think we’ve had a day where we haven’t had the situation change hour to hour.”

He’s had to step away from his job as Toronto’s fire chief and is being temporarily replaced by Jim Kay.

The crisis is taking a toll on the city’s first responders. On Sunday, the union representing Toronto firefighters reported that six of its members have tested positive for COVID-19.

Pegg is accustomed to being hands-on. His role as fire chief is largely administrative, but when something big happens in the city, he goes to the scene. This crisis has imposed a new set of rules.

“The scene is our planet, so there’s not really any scene to go to because we’re in it.”

His days, which start at 5 a.m., often end at 11 p.m. He is doing his best to stay healthy -- eating well, staying hydrated and practising social distancing. His voice is starting to give out.

At night he walks across Nathan Phillips Square to the hotel room where he is being put up to save time. It takes him only 35 minutes to get to his own home, but that’s one impossible hour out of every impossible day, fighting a crisis bigger than anything he’s ever fought.

Sometimes, as he is walking across the square, people recognize him from the televised afternoon press briefings and thank him -- from six feet away.

It encourages him that people keep their distance -- it means they are getting the message, he believes.

“We’re fighting something that is attacking the entire world and it starts with every single one of us, from our own personal hand hygiene, the way we behave, the way we socially distance -- what this looks like a few days and few weeks and few months from now is largely going to be dependent on what we do.

“So I’ll do my part.”