Leroy Manning’s last ride in a fire truck was a wet one.
He got pranked by Mike Holliday, one of the crew members on duty for Manning’s last shift with Prince George Fire Rescue at Fire Hall No. 4 on Austin Road. Just before he climbed into the truck, Holliday soaked the seat he knew Manning would be sitting in for the traditional retirement ride from the hall to his house on Teichman Crescent.
“It was payback, I can’t say I didn’t deserve it,” laughed Manning, the ultimate prankster in a career that spanned nearly 31 years.
With Acting Cpt. Shane Lapierre at the wheel dressed in his honour guard regalia, Manning was greeted by a long line of fellow firefighters and friends who gathered Saturday morning along the curb to salute him for a job well done. The las ride tradition started shortly after Eric Callaghan retired as a captain, as a way of saying thanks.
“It’s been going on three years now, it’s something that’s evolved, it’s a way to send a guy off properly,” said Callaghan. “We’ve had guys we’ve never seen back in the hall or back in town after they’ve walked out the door. They’ve left mad, something just wasn’t right and they walked out the door and never came back.
“This is our fifth or sixth one this year. Since I retired, 30 have left, that’s the top third of the department. ”
Just two months shy of 31 years of service, Manning turns 57 in November and he’s retiring three years before the mandatory age of 60. The weekly routine of two dayshifts, 8 a.m.-6 p.m., followed by two nightshifts, 6 p.m.-8 a.m., starts to take a toll and he’s looking forward to sleeping through the night again every night.
“It’s bittersweet, but it’s time,” he said. “We can work until we’re 60 but I’ve got my numbers in. Our magic number is 80 – years of service plus age – and I hit that a few years ago.”
Hired in 1989 under then-chief Mike Dornbierer, Manning was just 25 at the time and not far off his prime as a hockey player. The father of future NHL pro defenceman Brandon Manning was taught how to play the game at an early age by his dad Leo, a former Prince George Mohawk. Leory had the skill to play junior hockey but got a job in Grade 10 at Overwaitea and was making good coin and didn’t play beyond the juvenile Kings.
Above-average hockey skills and the team mentality athletes develop carried some weight with Dornbierer in his hiring practices and Manning joined the fire crew around the same time as Kevin Scobie, John Law and Brad Crossan. They were key additions to the Prince George Firefighters hockey team that won its fair share of provincial tournaments and placed high internationally. Crossan retired on Sept. 17 and Scobie, who hits the 30-year mark on Thursday, plans to work his last shift as assistant chief on Oct. 24.
Scobie said Manning was always among the first in line to volunteer for fundraising activities to support the B.C. Professional Firefighters’ Burn Fund, the Muscular Dystrophy Canada or the Harley-Davidson raffle for Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation. He’s known Manning since they were 13 years old, playing baseball and hockey together and credits him for helping him get hired on the fire crew.
“He’s a professional and he never wanted the chief’s job but he was very content to be a captain and he was good to his men, a good firefighter,” said Scobie. “The pranks never stopped, if there was joke to be had. At the end of the day he had a great career and I’m proud to be his friend.”
Law, also an assistant chief, remembers one scary incident during their training period when they lit an old abandoned house in College Heights on fire for practice and waited until the flames were raging.
“When we went to go in, it took a while for our hose to get charged and when it did get charged we breeched the door and being inexperienced the fire came up and went over us and Leroy burnt his ears a little bit and I burnt my gloves,” said Law. “The guy behind us had a safety line and sprayed us and we eventually got it out but it was a good lesson for us.
“He was senior to me and chief Scobie but he decided to stay as a captain and it actually was better for us junior guys because we knew we had a good competent captain working under us and it made our job that much easier.”
Manning had his industrial first aid ticket when he applied for the fire crew and during his career the medical aspect of the job changed radically. Firefighters are called to fewer fires because structures are built safer with warning alarms and fire-suppression systems, which weren’t so common when he started the job.
“Back in the day we had a lot more fires, now it’s more medical-orientated,” said Manning. “With the inspections now and fire safety, everyone has sprinkler and alarms systems wired in. You don’t have the wood stoves. Half the houses in the Hart had wood stoves and we had lots of chimney fires and you don’t have that as much anymore.
“In the mid-‘80s, we went to a first responder program and now all the firefighters have EMR (Emergency Medical Responder), so they have advanced medical training. It’s just way more professional, the training we get now for house fires, and WorkSafe has a lot to do with it. Two guys in, two guys out, ready to go, so we don’t get the injuries.”
Manning fought some of the bigger fires the city has seen over past few decades, including the lazes that destroyed North Central Plywood and the Yellowhead Inn. Over the years he’s also seen changes in what firefighters do when they’re not responding to calls.
“We train every day (in the weight room), a little bit of exercise time, more so than in the old days,” he said. “Back then you’d see guys out back having a smoke, but now I don’t think there’s one who smokes.”
Manning will have more time on his hands now to play hockey or pickleball, hunting and fishing, or do work on the cabin at Ness Lake. All three of his three kids – Brandon, Jessica and Kaitlyn – are based in the city and he has a side business renting concrete forms for construction. Wife Paula says she will no doubt have a long honey-do list of choirs around the house so retirement won’t be boring for Leroy.
He went through his career without getting seriously injured but saw his share of traumatic incidents, whether it was a fatal fire, a suicide or a traffic accident and sometimes it involved someone he knew personally. Manning had his own way of dealing with it and kept it to himself.
“I felt he never brought his work home with him, he held it pretty good,” said Paula. “He didn’t like to talk about what happened at work and I think he was good over the years with all that.
“I had confidence in him and I knew he was always going to come home safe and I just had faith in his fellow firefighters. Everybody bonds together and they watch each other’s backs. Having that camaraderie and seeing it myself just made me feel a bit more comfortable over the years,” she said.
”I think retirement will be good for him.”
