Windham Deputy Fire Chief dedicates life to safety, service and professionalism

Editor’s note: This is another in an ongoing series of Windham and Raymond town employee profiles.

By Ed Pierce

Ask Windham Deputy Fire Chief Steve Hall about his profession and he’ll tell you that firefighters never know what they will encounter on each call but proceed with the same level of commitment and service.

Steve Hall started his
firefighting career in 1991
and serves as Windham's
Deputy Fire Chief leading
the Fire/Rescue
Department's call company,
fire police and junior
firefighter programs.
SUBMITTED PHOTO 

Hall leads Windham Fire/Rescue Department’s call company, fire police, and junior firefighter programs. He assists with fire training including running the drill school for the new full-time hires and assists Windham Fire Chief Brent Libby with operations involving the call companies.

“I am also in charge of the recruitment and retention of the department,” Hall said. “This is one of the hardest aspects of our job. Less people have the time commitment to give to the Fire/ Rescue Department. I also have one weekend a month to be on call and in the town to provide support for the Fire/Rescue company.”

He began his career in firefighting in Farmington. Maine in 1991.

“I was working as an electrician then. There wasn’t enough work back then and would get laid off during the winter months,” Hall said. “That is when I decided I wanted to pursue a career as a firefighter. I enrolled into the Fire Science program at Southern Maine Community College. I graduated with an associate’s degree in 1995 and moved to Windham and joined the call company.

According to Hall, he was hired by the South Portland Fire Department in 1996 and worked there for two years before joining the Portland Fire Department, where he retired as a Lieutenant after 26 years of service. But once you work in public safety, you become hooked, and Hall subsequently came to work for the Windham Fire/Rescue Department.

“The best thing about the job is working with a great group of like-minded professional firefighter/Emergency Medical Service workers here in town,” Hall said. “When there is a major incident, we all come together to get the job done.”

The most challenging part of his job is recruitment, he said.

“There are less people interested in becoming firefighter/EMTs,” Hall said. “I have attended several different job fairs and getting people interested in the fire service is tough. It is a very big commitment. To become a firefighter, it takes at least 120 hours of classroom and hands-on training. Then to become an EMT it takes another 150 plus hours of training, hospital time, and then ride time with an ambulance service. This is a huge commitment for anyone especially if you have a family.”

His own family is supportive of his career.

“My family understands what I do. My wife currently is a career Firefighter/ Paramedic with the Windham Fire/Rescue Department,” Hall said. “My kids grew up with me not being home on holidays, birthdays, and weekends. We have always worked things around my schedule. Now we are working around my wife’s schedule. It’s a good thing we have a calendar on the wall at home. They also know that I may leave for a call anytime day or night.”

One thing the public may not know about the Windham Fire/Rescue Department is that it has a junior firefighter program and at the age of 15 a person can join the Fire/Rescue Department and learn the skills to become a firefighter/EMT, he said.

For Hall, his most memorable career moment came when he was asked to give a speech to a new group of citizens during their swearing-in ceremony to become citizens of the United States.

“I was asked to speak on my experiences regarding 9/11. I had gone down to Ground Zero a few weeks after the tragedy,” he said. “I knew a Division Chief from New York who was working in Staten Island. A captain from the Portland Fire Department and I drove to New York to attend a few funerals for the fallen firefighters, and the Division Chief drove us down to Ground Zero for their nightly shift change. The devastation was more than anyone can imagine. The smells and the sound are something I will never forget. Over the next few months, we attended well over 50 funerals. It wasn’t that we knew each firefighter, it was the fact that there were not enough New York firefighters available to attend these funerals because when they were off duty, they were digging on the pile at Ground Zero.”

Great at instructing training sessions, Hall believes training is a major part of the job.

“I’m trying to pass on my knowledge and experience to the next generation of firefighters,” he said. “Like they say, leave the job better than when you found it.” <