First Black captain leads HSFD’s push to recruit new firefighters
The Hot Springs Fire Department is working to expand its eligibility list for new firefighters, including a push for more minority hires led by Capt. Kenneth Byrd, the first Black firefighter to rise to the position of captain in the department.
“We’re making a push for more minority hires, but we’d like to have our numbers up, period, too,” Byrd said Wednesday. “When I came on in 1997, back then you would have about 100 applicants taking the test. Now we have 30 to 40, maybe.”
“It’s changed a lot,” Hot Springs Fire Chief Ed Davis said. “There were 125 (candidates) or so when I took the test. There’s just fewer people that want to be firefighters now as opposed to what they’re used to be. I mean, I get it. It’s a vocation where you’re going to get dirty. If the weather conditions are bad or good, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to be out in it. In the wintertime, you are going to freeze up. It’s just not as appealing to people as it used to be.”
While the HSFD does not currently have any openings, Davis said they are “working to establish an eligibility list” because they expect to have five openings within the next year.
“We can project who is leaving and retiring,” Byrd said. “We need to have qualified people ready to step in as soon as they leave. As there are openings to go to the Fire Academy we try to line that all up ahead of time.”
“We really need to get a bigger list to choose from,” Davis said, noting, “It’s a third of what it was when I took (the test) in the ’80s.”
While there are “occupational risks” with the job, Davis said there is also “a familial atmosphere and a lifestyle of camaraderie that I have never found anyplace else.”
“It’s a brotherhood and a respect for each other,” Byrd said. “You are able to serve the community and give back so it’s self-rewarding all the time.”
Byrd is the sixth Black member of the department and it was one of the first two Black firefighters who inspired him to join after pursuing a variety of careers earlier in life.
A native of Hot Springs and graduate of Hot Springs High School, Byrd served in the U.S. Navy from 1986-1990 and then went into government contract work with helicopters as a certified aviation electrician. He volunteered to go to the Middle East during Desert Storm and had planned a career in aviation, but the war “went pretty quick” and upon his return “aviation kind of fell under” and the recession hit along with a government hiring freeze.
He said he lived in Washington, D.C., for about eight months, but it was “too expensive” so he moved back to Hot Springs where he worked at Walmart and Sonic and later St. Joseph’s hospital, now CHI St. Vincent, for a few years. It was a fellow church member, James Ingram, who had been at the HSFD for 25 years, who convinced him to join the department.
“He was like a father to me. I didn’t grow up with a father,” he said. “He was after me for about six years to join, but I was reluctant at first because they weren’t paying a whole lot then.”
Byrd finally took Ingram’s offer and “Lord bless, I made it,” he said, joining the HSFD in September 1997.
Ingram and a fellow recruit, Sherman Perkins, were the first two Black firefighters and Perkins would go on to be the first Black officer, rising to lieutenant. Both Byrd and Davis said Perkins, who ultimately served 37 years with the department, could have been a captain but chose not to.
“He was happy where he was,” Davis said.
At present, the Hot Springs Fire Department has two women and four Black firefighters out of a total of 77, including 73 in “suppression,” who actually fight the fires and “ride the equipment,” and four in administration, Davis said.
“One of things we want to do is to be more reflective of the community we serve so we need to add more African Americans, want to add Hispanic people and women,” Davis said.
“We want to be an organization that reflects the community we serve and to make sure that any child can look at people who are firefighters and think, ‘I can aspire to be that.’ If you have someone who looks like you, you’re more likely to want to pursue that as a career path,” he said.
The various ranks in the department include firefighter, driver, lieutenant, captain and shift commander. The city is divided into two districts, one under each captain, and three shift commanders oversee the entire department, Davis said.
As a captain, Byrd is “understudying for the role of shift commander,” Davis said, and “from time to time when the shift commander is off, he will be doing what we refer to as ‘riding the seat’ in the incident command vehicle where he will actually run the incident scenes. It’s good training for the future.”
As part of his recruitment efforts, Byrd said he has “touched base with the community,” going to the Webb Center, the YMCA, barbershops and businesses “handing out flyers” and working with colleges such as National Park College and Henderson State University, and making contacts at schools and colleges in the southern part of the state “just trying to reach out” to potential candidates.
The basic qualifications to join the fire department are a high school diploma or GED, having no felonies and being 21 years of age, Davis said, although “you can be 20 when you take the test as long as you’re 21 by the time you graduate” the eight-week course at the Arkansas Fire Academy in Camden.
The age cutoff to join is 35, he said, noting the reasoning is “once you have put in 25 years, you would be 60 at that point and probably don’t need to be riding around in an engine company.”
Davis, 58, said by the time one reaches his age “you should be in the higher ranks,” although they do have some that prefer to stay at the firefighter rank their entire career and “there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re still in great shape and my hat’s off to them.”
Recruits go through a threeweek boot camp at the HSFD “which is designed to orient them to the equipment we use, so they can understand the turnout gear and other safety equipment,” he said. “How to use an air pack, understand the operating principles of the fire department and basic firefighting. All we’re doing is preparing them to go to Camden for the firefighter’s standards course and at least be at a level where they’re capable when they walk through the door there.”
Byrd noted that “not everybody is college material” and the HSFD offers a career with continuous “hands-on training” in a variety of areas such as fire suppression, being an EMT or paramedic, hazmat tech, rope rescue, water rescue and other special operations.
“You come on and get a career where you get to serve the community. When my kids were growing up and in school, I would go out and put on public safety programs and they would be like ‘that’s my dad,’” he said. “It’s very fulfilling. Good pay. Good retirement. It’s a great career to have.”
“People tend to evaluate each other here based on their work ethic and how they live their lives in front of them,” Davis said. “You know who people are and their personalities and how they really live their life because you live with them. You see them all the time. There is nothing hidden. The good thing about that is it tends to attract people who want to get along with others. It tends to cause people who put up false pretenses to not come on this job.”
He said firefighters work 24hour shifts so “it’s more like family life than anything else. You work as a team and bond together as a team. That was something that always appealed to me about it.”