This week, I set out to identify one of our own firefighters, Ambulance Paramedics or police officers as a Neighbourhood Hero.

I wanted to acknowledge one of our own, and in so doing, pay homage to the hundreds of New York firefighters, police officers and others that lost their lives on Tuesday September 11.

With that goal in mind, I called Nanaimo's Deputy Fire Chief, Doug Angrove and put him in the difficult position of choosing just one person from his department. In the end, he and Chief Ron Lambert selected Bryun Ashlie.

"Bryun Ashlie," Angrove told me, "is a typical firefighter. He does good stuff in the community, doesn't ask for anything and," he guessed, "he'll probably say, "Why are you choosing me?" and that's exactly what Ashlie said to me. Angrove knows his men well.

Carey Struch, a Grade 4 teacher at Park Avenue School, has taught both of Ashlie's daughters. She has also worked with him on the school's Parent Advisory Committee.

Struch agreed wholeheartedly with Doug Angrove. "Bryun's a really supportive man who is extremely humble," she told me. "He never seeks the limelight. He just works quietly and conscientiously and if there is a special event at the school, you can count on him to be there unless he has to work."

With that introduction, I walked into Number Two Fire Station last Tuesday evening. As you might expect, the other firefighters on Ashlie's shift had been giving him a good-natured ribbing about being selected as a "Neighbourhood Hero".

Within seconds, I began to understand the powerful sense of "brotherhood" firefighters have for one another. There was a special feeling in that room and I know there was more than one Neighbourhood Hero sitting around that table.

Soon, Ashlie and I slipped into another room to have a chat and I wasn't surprised to hear his answer when I asked him how he enjoyed his job.

"To me it's the best job in the world," he enthused. "It's never the same, there's always something different happening and there are a lot of highs as well as a lot of lows" - Highs when someone on the team is able to save a life, lows when they can't.

As he talked more about his job, I couldn't help thinking that if I were in an accident or a fire, I would want someone like Bryun Ashlie to arrive on the scene and help me out.

Ashlie is also the kind of person we want in our community. Whether it's for the volunteer work he does at his daughter's school, or the seven years he has spent coordinating the Fire Safety House program for Grade 3 students, the eight years with the Juvenile Fire Setter program, or the time he spends helping his close friend and neighbour, Darren Angell to organize two girls lacrosse teams.

By the way, 30 of the 65 professional firefighters in Nanaimo will be retiring in the next 8 to 10 years.

If you are a young person looking for an exciting and rewarding career, a career where you can really make a difference, you might want to consider firefighting. You'll need at least Grade 12, a willingness to begin as a volunteer and a commitment to pay for and take the 13-week Justice Institute's firefighter's program or another program like it.

And there's more, Deputy Chief Angrove tells me that you'll also need strong written and verbal communication skills, as much first aid training as you can get, good computer skills and, if you want an extra edge, you should learn as much as you can about construction.

And one final thing, you'll need to develop extraordinary courage and character. From the little I saw last Tuesday, no matter which of our current firefighters you replace, you'll have a big pair of boots to fill.