YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – One Youngstown firefighter is retiring after 36 years of service.

Captain Fred Deluca has been a Youngstown firefighter since 1991. Seventeen of those years have been at Fire Station 2 on Indianola Avenue. Before that, he worked in Liberty as a firefighter.

Deluca says retiring is bittersweet because the other firefighters are like a second family.

He says he knew at a young age that he wanted to fight fires.

“My dad was the airport manager for the city and he knew a lot of the firemen downtown. When I was a little boy, he came home with an old helmet and figured I would want to play with it. I got bit by that. That’s all I ever wanted to do and Youngstown was really the only place I wanted to be a fireman,” he said.

Deluca says he plans to spend his first several months of retirement just getting used to having the time off.