Redding fire chief retires after 51 years
REDDING — Fire Chief Mike Heibeck has stepped down from his position after serving the community for more than a half-century.
Heibeck, 69, retired in January after spending 51 years with the Georgetown Volunteer Fire department, where he was elected chief for 35 years.
But even in retirement, he said he’ll still answer emergency calls when needed.
First Selectwoman Julia Pemberton called Heibeck “a treasure.”
“Very few people have given as much to this community as Mike Heibeck,” she said. “He is among a rare few of Reddingites that have given the better part of their lives to this community and made Redding the way it is.”
Heibeck said he thinks his desire to volunteer was partly influenced by watching his father, a fire chief, respond to calls. After several years of seeing his father run out to emergencies, he signed up to volunteer after finishing high school in 1969.
For decades, he balanced his day job at Heibeck Motors — his family-run auto shop — with his responsibilities at the fire department. His three brothers worked at the shop and picked up the slack when he ran out for calls, he said.
When he started, the department answered about 200 calls a year, but
Georgetown responded to more than 800 calls annually by the time he retired, Heibeck said.
Over the years, he responded to a lot of fires.
He vividly recalled one fire from the early 1980s. A railroad car had a broken wheel that Heibeck said was “shooting off sparks.”
What started as small fires in Wilton burgeoned into a “huge brush fire,” burning over about 100 acres across a hillside, Heibeck remembered.
“The whole thing went up in flames,” he said.
He said it took about half the fire departments in Fairfield County to extinguish the blaze. After flames were put down, small fires continued to spark, warranting responses from fire crews.
In addition, Heibeck said he’s “seen the entire fleet change.”
Fire Commissioner Jim Mecozzi said Heibeck facilitated the department’s growth, adapting to changing times over decades with a “calm” demeanor.
“When Mike took over, there was a big change in how fire service operated,” Mecozzi said. “There was more science in firefighting than when he started, so he had to make those adaptations.”
Mecozzi said Heibeck provided up-and-coming firefighters with the training opportunities they needed, while ensuring the department’s equipment was up to date. Whether it was leading fire crews or overseeing changes from the tax district and expanding the firehouse’s bays to accommodate trucks, Heibeck was on top of it and “did a great job,” Mecozzi said.
“He did a lot of good in that time,” Mecozzi said. “There’s not a lot of people who are going to put the time in like Mike did.”
Heibeck said he hopes the Georgetown department continues bringing in recruits and sharing the kind of camaraderie he experienced for years on end, despite knowing it’s been a struggle to recruit new volunteers.
“He’s going to be a hard guy to replace,” Mecozzi said.
“Because he’s grown with the fire service in that 30 years and now whoever steps in, [has] big shoes to fill, has to pick the ball up and run with it.”