Millwood Gets Full-Time Fire Chief
The small town of Millwood wants to kindle interest in its volunteer fire department.
And Millwood Fire Chief Bill Clifford is the first spark.
This month, Clifford became the town’s first full-time chief, overseeing a staff of 21 volunteers.
“It’s going to better serve our community and those who pass through if we have somebody here all the time,” Clifford said.
Clifford, 35, has served as a part-time chief for the past five years. He left his full-time job as a warehouse manager for Gensco heating and air conditioning last month and plans to pump life into the department.
Clifford says he plans to court more volunteers, specifically those who work nights.
Nowadays, many of his volunteers work during the day and can’t always leave to respond to a traffic accident or fire.
When volunteers do respond they first have to come to the fire station in Millwood before heading out to a scene, which hurts their response time, he said.
“We want to increase our daytime responses,” Clifford said.
Currently, daytime response times run anywhere from three to five minutes, while the night-time average is just two to three minutes.
Complying with federal safety laws will take up much of his time. He said more and more laws are going into effect, which means more paperwork and supervision.
A federal law goes into effect in March, which requires a minium of four firefighters at a scene before any of them can enter a burning building if no lives are at risk.
“We have to keep up with the standards the same as a full-time fire department,” he said. “The guy down the street isn’t looking at us as volunteers. He’s expecting our training to be the same as full-time.”
Clifford, who will be paid $40,920 annually, said he also plans to work in conjunction with Valley Fire District 1.
He hopes the larger department will help with training volunteers, specifically allowing them to use Valley Fire’s training tower.
In the meantime, he wants to have 30 volunteer fire fighters on staff by the end of the year.