It may be a stereotype that firefighters are also wicked cooks, but Chopped Canada is testing the theory by pitting four smoke eaters against each other in a special episode next week — and a Brampton firefighter is among them.

The special episode airs Saturday, Dec. 10 at 9 p.m. on The Food Network and is aptly titled Fired Up.

Ryan Brown, a Brampton firefighter for more than three years, took on the competition from two B.C. firefighters and one from Alberta.

He isn't offering up any spoilers about how he did, but does say he had a lot of fun.

"It's filmed over one day, and it's one of the longest days ever, but one of the more fun days of my life," he says.

He's had a lifelong passion for cooking, and aside from firehouse chef duties, which his fellow crew members all share, he hosts a lot of dinner parties in his off-time, but cooking on the show was a "unique" experience, he says.

"When you're cooking, it's live. That part I found pretty shocking," he says. "When it's go, it's go. There's no do-overs."

Brown, 41, started baking cookies for his teachers in Grade 4, and that, he says, is where it all began for him.

One of his specialty dishes is butter chicken, which he learned to make in India, at the restaurant where the dish was invented.

But he also makes a mean pad Thai, he says, which he learned to cook in Thailand.

He has nothing but praise for the firefighters who appeared on the show with him.

"They were all incredible. Really, really good chefs," he says. "But it was fun, and they were great guys."

He says for him, it was more about having a good time than winning.

"At no point in time, did I ever want to win," he says, adding his competitors had great "back stories" about what they were going to do with the prize money. The Alberta firefighter, Scott Germain, lost his home in the Fort McMurray fire, and is going to use the money to rebuild.

The judges for the episode are Susur Lee, Eden Grinshpan and Michael Smith.

Brown gets his advice from Toronto celebrity-chef Cory Vitiello, who discovered Brown's now-specialty Boom Pickles two years ago.

Brown, if he won, would use the prize money to fund his pickle business, which he plans to launch officially before the end of this year.

"So many people have asked me now to supply their restaurants, I have to," he says.

It's something that started when he couldn't find a really good pickle on the market, so he began making his own. With the help of word of mouth, friends, family and strangers were putting in orders, and Vitiello requested a steady supply for his restaurant, offering Brown his kitchen as a workspace.

"The best thing about these pickles is how crispy they are," Brown says.

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And that comes from using the freshest of ingredients and the secret ingredient — "love", he says.

But asked if he would give up firefighting to dedicate himself full-time to his pickle business, he responds with an emphatic "no."

"Firefighting is a way of life forever," he says. "Nothing in the world is better than being a firefighter."