After decades of public service, longtime Chapel Hill Fire Chief Dan Jones will be stepping down this spring.
“After 41 years in the fire service (and) 25 years in Chapel Hill, my wife and I decided that it’s time to end my career in the uniformed fire service,” he says. “I let the town manager know (Wednesday) that I intend to retire in May.”
He’s spent his entire life in public service, leading the Chapel Hill Fire Department through a long period of transition. When he took office in 1990, he says the CHFD didn’t provide much more than fire service – but now it also provides emergency medical service, rescue services, and more.
“We’ve come a long way,” he says. “The one thing that I have the most mixed emotions about is the people that I work here with – (they’re) really, really good folks, very dedicated and very committed to the fire service and the citizens they protect. I’ll miss the daily interaction with those folks.”
Along the way, Chief Jones and his team faced a number of serious challenges – perhaps most notably a tragic fire in 1996 at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, which killed five students but also led to significant policy changes for new developments that have made our community (and others) much safer.
“That was a horrible tragedy,” Jones says, “but a lot of good came out of it – sprinkler systems in student housing, not only here in Chapel Hill but (also) in other parts of the country – and I felt good about the fact that we were able to turn that tragedy into a lot of positive things.”
Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt says Chief Jones will leave a tremendous legacy – not just with the fire department, but with Chapel Hill town government in general.
“He’s the longest serving fire chief this city’s ever had, (and) he’s seen us through some really tough, challenging times,” Kleinschmidt says. “His fingerprints are over a lot of things – not just the fire department, but (also) the management style of the rest of our organization…
“He got us through a recession – when other cities were losing or laying off firefighters, he was able to manage one of our town’s largest departments through that difficult time, doing things that no other fire chief in this whole state has ever done. He’s going to be hard to replace.”
Kleinschmidt says Chief Jones will be missed – but he also says the chief’s influence will be felt for years to come.
“He really has trained up a generation of extraordinary servants that have come through our fire department…and who will owe their careers to him,” Kleinschmidt says. “And he’s taught me a lot as well.”
Chief Jones says he won’t be leaving town anytime soon: his family is all here and Chapel Hill is home. But he says there’s one local community staple that he will miss.
“You know, one of the things I’m going to miss the most when I retire is not (being able to) listen to Ron Stutts every morning driving in to work,” he says.
Chief Dan Jones is expected to step down on May 1.
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