Hot Springs fire chief outlines continuity plan

Chief Ed Davis thinks the firefighters who can lead the Hot Springs Fire Department into the 2040s are already on staff.

He teased a plan at Wednesday’s Hot Springs Civil Service Commission meeting to help retain and prepare them for when that time comes. The full scope of the plan will be presented to the commission next month.

“I’ve got some young guys who are sharp as tacks,” he told commissioners. “They’ll do great in this job.”

October marked Davis’ 33rd year with the department. The following month he told the commission Fire Marshal Tom Braughton was his preferred successor. Davis’ deferred retirement option plan requires him to retire by 2027.

“Will I stay that long?” he said at Wednesday’s meeting. “I don’t know, but I would like to have a seamless transition.”

Davis said his plan would give the city a highly qualified pool of candidates to choose from when Braughton decides to retire.

“Obviously the city of Hot Springs has a right to pick whoever they want to pick for the chief’s job,” he told the commission. “At the same time, I feel like it’s my job to prepare the best people for it, so we have in-house candidates who are equal to or greater than those who will come from the outside.”

The department’s $12.64 million budget initiated part of the plan Davis outlined Wednesday, replacing the training officer’s position with two lieutenant spots. The shift will go into effect when Training Officer Ty Farris retires this summer. The two new positions would oversee training, with one focused on emergency medical services and the other on fire suppression.

Davis wants the fire marshal’s office converted to two lieutenants positions after Assistant Fire Marshal Carlton Scott retires in December. The creation of an assistant chief’s position would also be part of the proposed reorganization.

Davis said creating more administrative positions would broaden the candidate pool for chief.

“It allows us to be able to offer some of our younger candidates, our best and brightest, to come into administration to learn the skills associated with the leadership and management of the fire department,” he told the commission. “We have five or six candidates who are incredibly bright young people who we would like to see put in those positions.

“I think it’s incumbent upon us to look to the future, and I think it’s incumbent on us to make the department as nimble as possible to meet the needs that the city has.”

Davis said the new leadership positions would be open to anyone who’s served the department for two or more years. They would be pay level promotions and not promotions in rank. The commission oversees the latter, administering written tests, interviewing candidates and ranking them.

“Fourteen years from now, you’re probably dealing with another chief getting ready to leave,” he said. “You would have four ready-made candidates who understand administration, codes and the nuances of the application of standards and laws.”

Davis said expanding the leadership structure would keep younger firefighters from having to constantly be at the ready.

“The chief should be listening to their radio 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but the lower level people, especially those with children, it’s a good idea to be able to give them some time away,” he said.

“With two people there to respond, one to be accountability officer and one to be safety officer on fire scenes, it gives them that family time. It allows them every other night to be able to shut the radio off.”

Davis included the following items in his January report to the commission:

• The $2 million tilled aerial truck that arrived last month was put in service Feb. 5. Davis said it has a 25-year life expectancy on the front lines and another 10 years as a reserve.

• The department’s average response time to all calls in January was four minutes and 51 seconds. Five minutes is the benchmark.

• The department saved $1.12 million of property from fire damage last month. Losses totaled $184,500.