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“We just thought there’s no way,” said Matthew Spagnolo, who’s been at the station off Danforth for a decade. It was more likely some kid lit off a Roman candle and spooked the crowd, he thought.

Photo by Christopher Katsarov//The Canadian Press/File

In the truck, Spagnolo and Tony Buonfiglio put on latex gloves in the back. Up front, the crew’s captain, Jim Mechano, read updates on the computer. It showed multiple people shot, possibly 10 to 15. The shooter, it said, fled west down Danforth.

They started hearing sirens, then police cruisers roaring past them on Danforth as if their fire truck was standing still.

“That’s when we all decided, ‘OK this is for real,’” Buonfiglio said.

At that point, Pumper 323 was the only one en route to the scene. Cpt. Mechano called into his radio:

“Dispatch another pumper.”

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Two days after the shooting, Tony Buonfiglio brought his four-year-old son to the fountain.

“I just wanted to see it normal,” he said.

“Having grown up in that neighbourhood, I don’t know, I thought it might have made me feel better, being there with somebody that gives me the most incredible feeling I’ve ever had in my life – my little guy.”

It didn’t help much.

Buonfiglio, 46, responded to that call by chance. He doesn’t normally work with Pumper 323, but was filling in for one of the regulars.