The Current - Why are these firefighters recreating a Twilight scene?

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Volunteer firefighters on Pender Island, B.C. are getting plenty of attention for some of their fire safety videos that have remade an iconic scene from the film Twilight to get their message across. We speak with Todd Bulled, the volunteer firefighter behind the videos about where the inspiration came from.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. You know, to a certain demographic, that song will bring back memories of an iconic scene from the film Twilight. You remember that. Pretty intense game of baseball being played in this remote field in the Pacific Northwest. Well, picture this. Instead of that star-studded cast of that film, imagine that scene being played out by the volunteer firefighters of Pender Island in British Columbia. And instead of baseballs, they are throwing smoke detectors. The Pender Island Fire Hall, has gone viral on social media after posting the Twilight theme videos and other videos.

The mastermind behind their masterpieces is firefighter Todd Bullitt. Todd, good morning. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. How does this start that a volunteer firefighter starts and follow volunteer fire team starts making these videos and posting them up on social media? What was, what were you thinking? That's a good question. Well, we, I would say about, we've been having a presence on Facebook and Instagram for quite some time. But about a year ago, we really kind of turned a corner and decided, you know, to get the reach that we want with their fire and life safety messages, we need to really jump on those trends. And that's kind of how this all came to be, really.

Who's advising you on the trends? I'm not saying that you're not a hip young man, but sometimes it's great. Good to have some influence from another generation as well. That's totally true. So we have what we like to call a secret weapon on our team, which is we have a Gen Z, and just so happens to be my son. He's 23. He also is a videographer for most of these posts.

And so we'll sit down together and we'll kind of review, air quotes, go through Instagram, look for trends and posts that are doing really well. And then we want to take those and kind of make them our own, put our own. kind of twist on that. That's the secret weapon. So why twilight and smoke detector? Well, I mean, we kind of worked backwards. So that trend, we saw a couple other videos of people doing something similar, you know, kind of running through the forest, jumping off of things. Of course, not with the smoke detector. But we saw that trend and we thought, let's take that and let's put our own twist on it. We'll kind of incorporate the smoke detector in.

into it. And that's kind of how it all started. I mean, there are other videos as well. There's a video of what somebody's holding up a convenience store. They have a sausage. And what saves the life of the convenience store worker is a smoke detector that has flung across to knock the sausage out of their hand. There's a video set to the music of share. Do you believe? Where it's like, do you need a little pick me up after work? And one of the firefighters picks up the other firefighter and whips them around. I mean, what is going on? What? What? What are you trying to do with this? You said you're trying to spread a message in some ways.

Yeah, like we, so there are so many challenges facing fire departments nowadays, and fire and life safety messages are one of them, but also community engagement. Like, we really want to connect with the community, let them see who we are as actual people, and also kind of support that recruiting message that we have. So when we're not doing smoke detector content, We're trying to show who the team is and what kind of organization a future new member could be part of.

So that's kind of where we put those, inject those fun, fun reels into. Does it take much convincing to get your fellow firefighters to play ball here? You know what? When I first kind of pitch the idea, I definitely get some funny looks. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to play a share song and I'm going to pick you up. and swing you around like a doll. I definitely have some go-to people

that I know will say yes to almost anything. But I will say this, one kind of under-explored benefit of the Twilight one was you would not believe how much fun it is to go into the forest of the group of friends, running around, jumping. It was definitely, it was pretty funny at the end of it, how, you know, how uplifting it was.

But yeah, it's a hard pitch sometimes for sure, especially when I get chief involved in the video. What is it? Was the chief reluctant? Chief was perhaps a little suspicious or or skeptical of this? Well, I've had him in, I've had him in a few over the years. And we don't force the character with, with Chief Dine. We, I always say to him, I just need you to be yourself. And he plays, he plays just such a great cliche chief. It's, it's perfect, you know. He's always a little bit frustrated with me and that that goes well. What is it like to be a viral sensation? It's pretty wild. The last couple days, at least, have been incredible. The phone's been kind of ringing off the hook and messages from people.

And just the reach is like really amazing. Just hearing from people all around the world that have seen the content is very flattering for sure. Where have you heard from people from? Where are people getting in touch from? Oh, my, you kind of almost everywhere. Australia, the UK, Europe. I've had people actually send me screenshots of kind of different characters from our videos that are their screensaver on their phone. I just cannot believe kind of where we've gotten to. You're a star. I think for a moment online we are. Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Now, you also have a bit of star power that is helping you goose this. You had a cameo in some of your videos over the summer from Bruce Greenwood. He is an actor. He's been in all sorts of things. I want to ask you about this. I'm going to play a little bit of something that he was part of. This is a series called But Patrol. And who are you?

Butt Patrol. What? I'm But Patrol. I don't know what that means. I'm kind of a big deal around here. You should ask around. I have some questions. What is Butt Patrol?

But Patrol was a concept. Last year we were working on messaging to reduce discarded cigarette butts that cause wildfires. And so we came up with this, again, kind of this cliche idea of the chief is frustrated with the social media that I'm doing. And so he kind of bust me down to this terrible assignment, which is riding around on my bike, preventing people from discarding cigarette butts. We call it But Patrol. And that's how that concept started. Bruce Greenwood. I mean, he's been all sorts of films.

Even he was in Mad Men. He was in Batman films. He's been in, what, Adam McGoyan films and trying to remember all of the things that he. How does he end up being part of But Patrol? He, so he is a part-time resident here. And I had always kind of, I'd run into him in the community. And we talked back and forth about projects I was doing for the department. and he always offered to help where he could.

And I kind of cold pitched him one day. I sent him a message to say, I'm working on this thing's called Butt Patrol, which obviously is a great pitch. And we needed a villain. And he was like, I'm in. And I couldn't believe it. What did you learn about acting from Bruce Greenwood?

I got to say he was incredibly generous with his time, because, you know, we had said, you know, this is a 30, 50-second thing, you know, if you wouldn't mind helping out. And not only did he appear in it, but he spent a week with Hayden, our Gen Z superstar and myself, really giving us a crash course in filmmaking and acting. And it was, it was honestly, we always talk about our content and there was before Bruce Greenwood and then after Bruce Greenwood. I mean, there's a serious message to all of this, right? part of it is not just don't flick the butts so that they don't cause fires, make sure that you replace the batteries and your smoke alarms. What have you seen in terms of the reach of that message? Because you could tell people that, but when it's fun and funny, something else

happens, right? Oh, absolutely. The engagement is the best part because, and that was the challenge from day one, is how do you, how do you get these messages out there that are really not that interesting. How do you get people to watch that? And so that's kind of where we flipped it around. We want to make entertaining content and kind of sneak the message in there. And people just love that. They aren't, they're surprised that they actually ended up by, you know, by accident watching some content that was telling them to do that. And I think they really appreciate that creativity. And maybe they'll actually replace the batteries in the smoke detector. That's what we hope. Now, you could imagine there are other volunteer firefighters

and volunteer fire departments across the country that want to steal what you're doing. You're cool with that? Oh, absolutely. I think for better or for worse, that's kind of what social media is all about is, you know, air quotes, borrowing an idea and taking it, making your own. And we do get a lot of messages from other departments that are kind of inspired by us. and show appreciation because, you know, we're kind of, we're doing these things that they want to do. And so it's kind of inspiring to hear from them for sure. What about just finally for you?

I mean, it's like a second career. This could be another thing. A career in acting, a career in filmmaking. I mean, volunteer firefighting or whatever else you're doing, that's great. But, I mean, Hollywood could be, you know, one of the destinations that's calling. Well, I mean, I certainly,

if you asked me a year ago, if I would be doing this interview, you, I would have said, there's no way. I mean, I just can't believe where we've gotten with the content. And it really has been kind of another job on the side. But it's so fun and rewarding. It doesn't feel like work. So, but yes, very surprising where we've made it with us.

It's amazing. Well done. You're doing good things. Todd, thanks so much. Thanks for having me on. Todd Bullitt is a volunteer firefighter. He is on Pender Island in British Columbia. if you just search Pender Island Fire on Instagram,

you will find many, many, many of those videos. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.

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