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A few passing clouds. Low 39F. Winds light and variable..

A few passing clouds. Low 39F. Winds light and variable.

BARRE — When Doug Brent hopped on a firetruck Friday afternoon it wasn’t an emergency, it was the beginning of the end — a slow, ceremonial, career-capping ride that under normal circumstances would have ended at the now former fire chief’s Country Way condo.

Brent recently put that condo on the market, found a buyer in six dizzying days and closed on Thursday — just in time to celebrate his 68th birthday and spend his last day on a job he held twice in a community that holds a special place in his heart.

“Springfield is my hometown, you can’t ever change that, but Barre is the place that’s felt like home,” Brent said during an interview he squeezed into his awfully busy week. “It’s hard for me to talk about really.”

The latter part went without saying, because Brent almost choked out the words.

That show of emotion was on display at times during what turned into a day-long sendoff Friday — one that brought dozens of dignitaries, former colleagues and other well-wishers to Barre for an afternoon salute that was sandwiched in between a memorable lunch at Barre’s former firehouse and Brent’s final ride on a firetruck.

It was supposed to be a surprise, and in some ways much of it probably was, though it’s hard to believe a man who spent nearly 50 years of his life responding to emergencies didn’t sense something was up.

“Nobody has told me anything, but I have a sneaking suspicion,” Brent said during his interview.

Brent based his hunch on calls he’d received in recent days and his understanding of the people he worked for and those who worked under him.

Truth be told, those relationships and Brent’s bond with Barre — where his first decade-long tour as fire chief ended when he took of the helm of the South Burlington Fire Department in 2002 — prompted him to abort his planned retirement in 2018.

Brent recalled fielding a call from then-City Manager Steve Mackenzie inquiring if he’d consider putting off retirement and reestablish the stand-alone fire chief’s job not long after he left.

Brent took Mackenzie up on the offer.

“It just felt like something wasn’t complete yet,” he said, noting he knew he made the right choice as soon as he saw the huge banner draped across all four bays of the fire department when he returned to Barre.

“It said: ‘Welcome Home Chief Brent,’” he said of the banner. “That about sums it up.”

More than four years later Brent is retiring again — this time for real and without regret. Unless you count the fact that the 122-year-old farmhouse he and his wife, Renee, bought in Island Pond is a 90-minute drive away from Barre.

“I love this community,” Brent said. “This community has been good to me. It has been a privilege to serve the people who live here.”

That was before Brent got a peek at the just-edited menu at Ladder 1 Grill — a restaurant in the historic firehouse that still housed the Barre department when he took the South Burlington job 20 years ago.

In a nod to Brent, the Ladder 1 menu has been amended to note the “Smoldering Queso Burger” has been dedicated in honor of Barre’s just-retired fire chief.

Brent joined City Manager Nicolas Storellicastro and Deputy Fire Chief Joe Aldsworth at a lunch he didn’t know about in a converted fire station that was sold by the city when the new public safety building was built.

The modern facility, which brought the city’s police and fire departments under one roof, was a project Brent long-lobbied for in his first run as Barre’s fire chief, but he left for South Burlington two months after voters approved the bond issue that financed its eventual construction.

The opportunity to work in the building was an added bonus, according to Brent, who might have missed his calling if there were more television stations in Vermont.

Brent flirted with the idea of pursuing a career in television journalism while attending Graham Junior College in Boston in 1972.

There were a dearth of opportunities in Vermont.

“One thing I figured out pretty quickly was my job prospects (in television) were limited and, after going to college in Boston, I wanted to come back to Vermont,” he said.

Brent didn’t — at least not right away. In 1973, he took a job as an emergency room technician and ambulance EMT for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center while serving as a live-in call firefighter for the fire department in Hanover.

Brent recalled those were the days when all you needed for training was “Boy Scout first-aid” to work as an EMT.

“It was a different world,” he said. “Literally, we had one pair of rubber gloves on the ambulance. It was in the obstetrical kit in case we had to deliver a baby. Other than that, we didn’t wear gloves.”

Brent said that was before smoke detectors and automated defibrillators.

“We’ve come a long way in terms of personnel and patient safety,” he said.

Brent said his career in emergency services began on April 1, 1974, and it was no joke.

“I was a bottom of the ladder firefighter-EMT,” said Brent, who was happy to get the opportunity in the only community — Springfield — where he’d lived for an extended period of time.

Brent never questioned the decision.

“I liked doing what I was doing,” he said. “Helping people was what I was cut out to do.”

It was a “win-win” for Brent, who got to hone his skills while rising up the ranks in Springfield.

“Doing that in your home town with people you’ve known all your life was really special,” he said.

Brent had risen to the rank of deputy chief in 1981, when the Springfield department was summoned to the scene of a fire at the Star Hotel on Dec. 29.

“That was the night when things all shifted for me,” said Brent, who recalled he was watching television at the time and getting ready to join his chief presenting the department’s budget to the select board.

Brent’s boss handled the budget presentation and he went to the infamous 40-year-old fire that claimed the lives for Bellows Falls fire fighters Terry Brown and Dana Fuller.

The fatal fire didn’t change Brent’s mind about his career, but it did redefine how he did it.

“I remember thinking: ‘This isn’t supposed to end like this. They never told us about this in school,’” he said.

It was a lesson Brent learned in the field along with his neighbor, John Wood.

Wood worked with Brent in Springfield before taking the chief’s job in Bellows Falls two weeks before the Star Hotel fire.

When Wood left that job in 1986, Brent left Springfield to replace him as the chief in Bellows Falls and six years later came to Barre, which was a better fit for a chief who is a big believer and in a combined fire and ambulance service.

“It’s the model that provides the best service,” he said, noting stand-alone ambulance service invariably call the local fire department when they need help at a scene.

A dual-role service negates the need for that call.

A phrase frequently used to characterize structure fires, describes Brent’s management style. He was, by all accounts — including some shared by those who spoke Friday afternoon — “fully involved.”

According to Brent, that’s the job — one that’s not always easy and often requires dealing with people on what may well be the worst day of their lives.

It’s work Brent is convinced he was cut out for, always enjoyed and is ready to let go.

“Helping people is personally very gratifying,” he said.

“All of the human despair I’ve been exposed to,” he said. “Whether it’s on an (ambulance) call, or whether it’s telling someone: ‘I’m sorry we’re not going to be able to save your building. Your personal belongings are in there, your pets are in there’ … it gets to you.”

Given the chance would Brent do it all over again?

“No question,” he said. “This was what I was meant to do with my life. … It’s in my DNA.”

So said the man whose final ride on a firetruck ended where it began — at the fire station in Barre.

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