EDMONTON—This is the heartwarming moment Captain Pat Duggan of the Fort McMurray Fire Department surprised his teenage son after the ravages of the Fort McMurray wildfire tore them apart.

“I love you and I’m sorry if I worried you,” he said with tears in his eyes, as he embraced 15-year-old Colton outside Strathcona High School in Edmonton, where he had just finished his first day in a new school.

Earlier Monday, he met his wife Joy, 43, and daughter Victoria, 18, at Edmonton International Airport, where he had stepped off a RCAF C-130 Hercules aircraft. He held them both close, the first time he felt relaxed in seven days. And the Star was there to capture the emotional reunions.

Duggan is one of 11 firefighters who touched down in Edmonton on Monday for a much-deserved break with the department’s first shift rotation. Until now, his family had watched TV helplessly as images of the intense fire took hold of the city, knowing their husband, their father was at the centre of it.

Duggan guessed he’s only had 16 hours of sleep since the city’s evacuation of 88,000 people on Tuesday.

“As soon as we finished in one place, we’d be deployed to another,” the 43-year-old said. At one point, he wore the same set of clothes — jeans and a T-shirt under his bunker gear — for three days straight.

He tried texting his family while en route to different fire zones in the city. For the first few days, each message was the same, short and simple: “I’m okay.”

“So the next day I would hope I’d get another one,” said Colton.

Joy, who is the children’s stepmother, said she is looking forward to seeing her husband recharge.

“I’m not relieved yet until tonight when you’re in bed and you can close your eyes and know that you can just relax, breathe and not worry for a few days.”

His daughter Victoria said she is “very proud” of her dad for what he does even if it “scares the crap out of me.”

Duggan had been helping the 18-year-old University of Alberta student move into residence in Edmonton when his phone rang. The voice on the other end ordered him back into town.

“I heard the tone of his voice, saw the look on his face and my first thought is that he has to go,” she said, her voice breaking.

Duggan immediately drove north to Fort McMurray, where his family resides. His wife and son would soon be evacuated.

“The hardest part was driving back . . . trying to get their as fast as I can,” he said, tightly holding his wife’s hand. “Hoping I could be quick enough.”

Upon arriving, the firefighting veteran of 13 years saw the blaze, “a career fire,” unlike anything he had encountered before.

“You could no longer hear the individual cackles, but instead it was one big roar,” he said. “I could still hear that noise 500 metres away.”

It was so powerful, Duggan told the Star, that at one point, he felt “air pulling past him” as the flames sucked them in.

His fight against the fire that forced thousands out of their homes was personal.

“It was a fight for life, a fight for community,” he said, adding that some crewmen were forced to abandon or cut their fire hoses so they wouldn’t become encircled.

Still, Duggan said the department hasn’t incurred any serious injuries.

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“There were some sprains here and there,” he said. “But the guys were beautiful about it, no one complained.

With soot still stuck in his ears, he recalled the case of a firefighter who split his palm open and was taken into an abandoned hospital by his partner, who had trained as an EMT. Grabbing a suture kit, the fellow firefighter sewed his comrades’ hand shut and both continued working.

“I have to say that I cannot be prouder of the guys and gals I work with . . . they never gave up, not once,” he said. “I wouldn’t work anywhere else on the planet or with anyone else.”