Meet Kenny Gabriel

Age: 52

Education: A considerable amount of training and education in the field of fire services

Family: Wife, Wendy, blended family of kids, Aaron, Magan, Ryan, Caitlin, Erin and "four spectacular grandchildren."

Number of hours on average you work in a week: "That a tough one - the last couple of weeks, 60. It's 40 in the office normally and then whatever else happens."

Number of hours on average you sleep at night: Eight

Hobbies: Anything with the kids, grandkids and the river

Favorite book: "One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey" by Richard Proenneke

Favorite spectator sport: Baseball, Mariners fan and former Lake City High School baseball coach

Favorite type of music: "George Strait. Not country, George Strait."

Quality you admire most in a person: Honesty and loyalty. "I don't like fake people very much."

Best advice you ever received: "Never let them see you sweat." Received the advice from former Fire Chief Rick Lasky when he took over as chief.

Historical figure you admire most: Abraham Lincoln

Biggest influence on your life: My dad. "The older I got, the smarter he was. The lessons he taught me are pretty amazing."

COEUR d'ALENE - Toward the end of my interview with Coeur d'Alene Fire Chief Kenny Gabriel, I looked at my recorder and saw that only 22 minutes had passed.

I was shocked by how little time had gone by considering I had asked him more questions than in a typical In Person interview, and he had asked me questions about myself as well. It spoke volumes about who Gabriel is as a person - a big personality with an even bigger heart, who regularly makes split-second decisions.

"Were you always so decisive like this, or was it something that you learned over time?" I asked him.

"No, I was the shyest guy you had ever met in your life," Gabriel replied. "Big stutterer and would never speak in front of people ever. But that changed in the fire service."

Gabriel moved to North Idaho from California when his father retired in 1978. He told The Press that moving to the east side of Spirit Lake as a high-school sophomore was hard, but he quickly made friends through sports and the outdoors.

"It didn't take long before I realized that this is the greatest place on Earth," Gabriel said. "It's never really occurred to me to go anywhere else."

Why firefighting?

When I was growing up, my dad was in the fire service and my older brother was a paid firefighter for Kootenai Fire. Before he got hired he was a volunteer here and he kept bugging me and kept bugging me to come to a drill.

So, the Monday after my son was born, I went to a drill.

The minute I walked in, and you may laugh at this, I noticed the smell - the smell of the turnouts with the smoke and all that stuff. I remember that smell, and to this day I love that smell.

From that Monday, 100 percent of my energy went into becoming a firefighter and I did everything in my power to do it. My goal was to become a firefighter by the time I was 25 and I missed it by like a month.

I was in Osburn for three years but I had to come back home.

Did you have dreams of becoming a fire chief or did you just want to be a firefighter?

I just wanted to be a firefighter in Coeur d'Alene - that was everything I wanted to do.

Believe it or not, the fire chief thing was a fluke.

Really? How so?

When Chief (Rick) Lasky left, I got a phone call from then Mayor Steve Judy. Chief Lasky and I were pretty tight and he used to tell me all the time I needed to think about my career. But I drove a ladder truck; I was pretty happy.

I got a phone call from Mayor Judy and we met and he slides a piece of paper across the desk and says 'Sign this.'

I asked him what it was and he said 'That's your new contract. You're our new fire chief.'

What did that feel like?

I was overwhelmed. I was completely overwhelmed. It was hard because I had never had any experience in leadership.

I had great mentors, the best of the best, but it was real hard. You get a little more into it though, and start creating a vision for your department.

Then when you have people like I have people, life can get pretty easy.

Other than the smell, what do you love about firefighting?

The pure exuberance of the job - there's adrenaline in everything you do. We aren't big lights and siren guys because we know that's more of a risk than it is a gain.

But, truly, the ability to go help people is a big deal. When people call 911, they're not having a good day and the minute we get there and hit the brakes they expect that we're going to make their day better. On most occasions, we make their day better. Knowing that you have the ability to do that for somebody, and the pure gratification in doing that for somebody, is huge.

There's got to be a component of fear. You're in charge of people and love the people who work underneath you. Is one of your biggest fears when it comes to the job, sending those guys out?

It keeps you up at night.

For instance the guys in Bayview, they know they've got to be texting me. You can look at my phone and see text after text from them.

They know they have to text me because they know I'm not sleeping and I'm not comfortable knowing they're in harm's way.

We put them in harm's way every day, just simply by the nature of the job. But that is the thing that makes you old and keeps you so concerned at night.

So you're almost taking the role of a father-figure at the department?

Well, we are most definitely a family. I do truly love and have affection for every one of them.

And that's not a canned answer - I have some of the greatest people on Earth working at this department.

Does playing that fatherly role help you handle the fear and the feeling that keeps you up at night?

The thing that makes it the easiest is knowing that the people in supervisory positions are very, very good. And when those people are supervising people that are also very, very good, it makes it even easier.

Sometimes the chief gets stuck. I don't get out and see my guys as much as I want to because I have a responsibility that is not going out on as many calls or having coffee with the guys. That's the hard part of the job.

When you hear about or respond to these manmade fires such as the one near Bayview, what's going on in your head and what do you wish you could tell the responsible party?

I would just want to let them know what they're doing and what the consequences of their actions are.

It's not just the stuff that gets burned up.

Let's say it happens at 11 o'clock at night when the guys are asleep. First risk is you go from asleep to 100 miles an hour and that takes a toll on your heart. Second risk is you getting in the rig and running lights and sirens, there's always a risk in that.

Then you have the risk of doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world to begin with, all because someone was playing.

Just think about what you can do because there's so many things at risk. And for what? What are you gaining from that?

Do your guys ever come to you and ask how to balance a crazy, stressful job with a vibrant family life? What advice do you give to them?

It's all about the balance and it's tough.

We have a lot of guys here with really young families and they're trying to find that balance. We have a demanding job that calls them back a lot and it's difficult because when we need help, we need help.

These guys are running 30 calls a day and they do it two days in a row. When they get home, that first day they're spent. When they get home they're tired and that's why we have the schedule set up the way we do.

My thing is just rest, have balance, love your job and love your family more.

At one point, both you and your wife, Wendy, had jobs that were very public roles in government. Did she help you make that transition and understand the bureaucracy?

Well I was chief before I met Wendy. But the interesting dynamic of our relationship was that we knew that we were both in these spots. We made a decision right off that one of the things we weren't going to do was discuss city work.

It wouldn't have been fair to the other department heads and there could have been a perception that the fire department only got something because of Wendy - we wanted to make sure that never happened.

As a matter of fact, I think it was harder on the fire department because we had to do more to prove what we needed versus someone just saying there was favoritism.

That's the beauty of the way Wendy managed - that never came into play. She would have never let the integrity of her position or the city be questioned by something like that.

It was kind of hard because you come home and say 'Honey how was your day' and it just never worked out that way.

Yeah because if you have a rough day, the first person you'd want to go vent to is your spouse.

Couldn't do it. We made it work really well. But we just couldn't do that.

Once we knew we could make this work and it wouldn't be a conflict it was fine. We knew what the boundaries were and knew how to make it work well and just enjoy family life.

So did your kids all stay in the Coeur d'Alene area?

They're all here.

Do you think that just speaks to where we live?

I think it does. It's hard to leave here.

I'm blessed because my grandkids are all here; I get to see them as often as I possibly can, and I talk to my kids almost every day.

Yeah, I'm blessed.