In the public eye: Raymond Fire/Rescue Chief Bruce Tupper

Bruce Tupper started working as
a firefighter and dispatcher in 1981
and has led the Raymond Fire/Rescue
Department as chief since 2011.
COURTESY PHOTO  

 By Briana Bizier

Editor’s note: This is another in an ongoing series of Windham and Raymond town employee profiles.

Bruce Tupper has every child’s dream job; he’s the Chief of Raymond’s Fire and Rescue Department. However, being a firefighter was not Tupper’s childhood dream. He grew up in Cumberland, where his father was a state trooper.

 “I always swore I wouldn’t be in public safety because the phone would ring at dinner, and he would have to go,” Tupper said. “I was still making up my mind what I wanted to do when a friend of mine said, ‘Hey, let’s go up to the fire station and I’ll buy you dinner.’ So I went in, and it was the most welcoming environment I’d ever been in. I fell in love with it.”

That love has now stretched over four decades and several different towns. Tupper began his public service career with a dispatch position in Yarmouth and as a volunteer, or on-call, position with the Freeport Fire Department. He later moved to the Gray-New Gloucester Fire Department, where he would regularly call the Raymond Fire Chief.

“The chief in Raymond had been calling me for years, asking what I was doing, and he’d always say, ‘do you want to come and work for me?’” Tupper said. “One day I finally said yes.”

 Tupper now heads a department which includes full-time, part-time, and on-call staff. Fighting fires is only a small part of what the Fire and Rescue Department does for the town of Raymond every day. They provide education, review plans for subdivisions and commercial buildings, and run programs like risk mitigation. The department also serves as Raymond’s ambulance service.

“Emergency medical services is a huge part of what we do,” Tupper said.

These services have been especially crucial during the pandemic, as Raymond Fire and Rescue has transported COVID-19 patients to the hospital with the help of their on-call staff.

“We’ve got CFOs or scientists on our on-call staff who come home from their job, and they’re sitting down to dinner, and the call comes in, and out they go,” Tupper said. “They were risking COVID to transport patients.”

All of Tupper’s staff, from the full-time positions to the on-call team, require constant training and re-training.

“We’re always educating our own,” Tupper told me. “That’s a huge piece of what I have to oversee as components and parts of the department. I’m directing the operation, making sure everyone is trained, making sure everyone is equipped, making sure all the equipment is tested."

One of the major shifts Tupper mentioned is the transition to electric vehicles. Unlike a gasoline-powered car, responding to an emergency involving an electric vehicle poses risks like electric shock and exposure to different toxic materials. Another shift involves changes in home structure, design, and furnishings. Fires spread more quickly in modern, open-floor plan houses with features like cathedral ceilings and lightweight, combustible furnishings.

“In my career I’ve relearned how to fight fires,” Tupper said. "It’s not my grandmother’s couch anymore made out of wool and real wood. We’re always learning and changing how we do things.”

This is one reason Tupper urges everyone to err on the side of caution. “If you have it in your mind that you might need the fire department, please call us,” Tupper said. “We’d rather show up and have it be nothing than have a crisis. We can’t un-burn things that have burned if we’re too late.”

It’s also a good time to double check the fire safety of your own home. Please make sure that the numbers on your house are clearly visible from the road and haven’t been overgrown by bushes or trees.

“It’s fairly easy to find the place with smoke billowing out of it,” Tupper said, “but it’s not always easy to find the house with someone lying on the floor. Making sure your house is clearly marked saves time and saves lives.”

Other life-saving devices that may go overlooked are smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Today would be a good day to change the batteries in your devices, or to replace them altogether if they are more than 10 years old.

Finally, Tupper urges anyone who is interested in joining the team at Raymond Fire and Rescue to please reach out.

“The on-call department is really an important piece of our department,” he said. “If people have the time and interest, please inquire at the local station. With everything that’s going on in our world today, with the pandemic, violence, and division, we still bring people together for a common goal.

“It’s the best job in the world,” Tupper said. “It really is. When someone’s having their worst day, you can offer them a ray of sunshine.”

Of course, a casual trip to Raymond Fire and Rescue could easily turn into a lifelong love affair.

“People have fallen in love with this,” Tupper said. “That’s how I ended up here. I fell in love with the whole of it.” <