Cornwall's fire chief wins national award and performs 'Bohemian Rhapsody' better than a parody

Cornwall’s fire chief Pierre Voisine is no ordinary leader. His methods of making people aware of the risk of fire are truly unique.

This month, he took out a “Bohemian Rhapsody” parody that aims to educate people about measures to take to anticipate fire outbreaks. He also received a special award for his great work.

Last Wednesday, Cornwall’s fire chief Pierre Voisine, 46, received the 2018 Career Fire Chief of the Year Award from the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. The next day, a music video was released where the chief sings a parody of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

In the parody, Voisine swapped the original lyrics for ones about fire safety. So far, more than 14, 000 people have watched the clip.

For more on this story go to our Twitter account @amomama_usa. It’s become the most popular video on the City of Cornwall’s YouTube channel.

With regards to the award, on a yearly basis, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs chooses a fire chief who leads a part-time service and another who leads a full-time one. Voisine had this to say:

“It’s interesting. Because most of the time the people who receive it are at retirement age. You know how it is; you have to work a whole career to have done enough interesting things (to be considered.)”

The chief doesn’t plan to retire any time soon. He received his award at the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs conference in Ottawa where about 700 people attended.

The City Counselor Bernadette Clement couldn’t help but praise Voisine for his work saying:

“He brings great energy to his leadership role, great modern approach to communication with the community in terms of increasing awareness around fire safety and he also is someone who thinks long-term.”

On the other hand, the “Bohemian Rhapsody” video he made was 1 of 4 music videos that the department has filmed this year. This isn’t the first music video Voisine has starred and sung in.

Last year in October, he made a parody of the Sam Hunt song “Take Your Time.” This video was released on his own YouTube channel.

The fire chief is actually a musician himself who plays the drums. He hoped music videos would have more of an effect in educating the public about fire safety.

He explained:

“It creates a lot of a buzz. It’s better than just handing out pieces of paper, which doesn’t work anymore.”

The rest of the videos will be released next year. The next one coming out will be for Fire Prevention Week which will begin next month.

Before taking the job as Cornwall’s fire chief in 2015, Voisine was a deputy fire marshal for the Canadian Forces. While serving in Afghanistan, he led the creation of a light-armored vehicle extraction program for military firefighters.

This program was later shared with allied countries. Voisine was also in charge of overseeing the inspection and maintenance of fire prevention systems for the entire Department of National Defense.