After nearly thirty years of serving, teaching, and protecting the City of Swift Current, a local Deputy Fire Chief is calling it a career.

Pete L'heureux has officially hung up his gear and is settling into retired life – which, for him, is not just about kicking his feet up.

"I'm really excited for learning and doing things," he said. "Most people at some point recognize that you know we work so that we can have this ideal retirement after life, but most of us never figure out how to get out of kind of the grind because we've got to accumulate more wealth so we can buy more stuff so we can do the things that we want to do.

"So, I'm really excited about doing things that I like to do; I've got some bicycle trips, some backpacking trips – we love to travel. And I've got a long list of things that I want to learn how to do, so it's going to be tracking down people who know how to do these obscure things, then convincing them to teach me."

pete_lheureuxPhoto courtesy of the Swift Current Fire Department Facebook

L'heureux worked as a firefighter for the Swift Current Fire Department for just shy of 27 years, with 13 of those being a Deputy Fire Chief.  His most recent position had him working closely with the public to educate and enforce fire safety regulations.

While he described himself as an introvert, L'heureux said his favourite part of the job was the people.

"There's lots of great people in our community and lots of great people in the province that I got to meet and throughout the country when I got to do things on national level. Great people, interesting people," he detailed. "We've got a community full of wonderful people that are great community citizens and do a lot of things that I don't think get acknowledged.

"[There are] different things that happened throughout my career that are tragedies. Kind of exciting as a firefighter, right? You go to big fires or big events or big accidents, but for most people those are terrible events and not what I would consider a highlight of my career."

pete_lheureux2Photo courtesy of the Swift Current Fire Department Facebook

"There's ebbs and flows and sometimes they're better than others, but it's been a wonderful career," he concluded. "It's been rewarding, and it's been interesting. All those kids out there thinking that they want to do something interesting – this is it."