There’s a new fire marshal in town and he’s well known to those involved with the Sedona Fire District.
Public Information Officer and Deputy Fire Marshal Gary Johnson will take over the duties of fire marshal after Will Loesche vacated the position in April.
Johnson was officially named fire marshal Saturday, June 11. He started in fire sciences with SFD in October 1978 upon moving to the area in June of that same year.
“When I was asked to join the fire department in a small town I said, ‘Why not? It sounds kind of interesting.’ It was a way for me to give back to the community. Little did I know that I would become interested in it and end up making a career of it,” Johnson said.
Johnson called the position both challenging and rewarding.
“I consider what I do, primarily, as education, whether it comes from educating folks on why things are the way they are, on fire dangers, why things are required, and so forth,” Johnson said.
Loesche served as fire marshal in Sedona for 17 years prior to his resignation. He left his post for a new position with the Golder Ranch Fire District in Oro Valley near Tucson.
“Will Loesche did a great job in training me to be able to step into his place,” Johnson said. “Right now, things will stay status quo. We’ll be as progressive as we can with the current economic challenges that we are currently facing.”
For Johnson, no two days are ever the same at SFD.
“Because of the broad job duties I have, I can start off in the morning answering basic questions from a contractor about a fire protection requirement to interacting with a resident concerning a complaint they have in their neighborhood and ending up installing a car seat for a new parent. I enjoy doing a lot of different things every day. It makes the job interesting, yet challenging at the same time,” Johnson said.
While there are no current plans to fill Johnson’s former position as public information officer and deputy fire marshal, Johnson himself will absorb some of those duties into his new role.
“At this point, the division has been reduced to two individuals, the fire marshal and a fire inspector. I will continue to be the public information officer for the district. What I have done with my former duties is I have absorbed some of them into my current position and reassigned some of those to the fire inspector,” Johnson said.
SFD Fire Chief Nazih Hazime said he felt confident in Johnson’s abilities take the reins from Loesche.
“We appointed him as the fire marshal. He’s got all the credentials and is certainly familiar with investigations, enforcements and everything that’s required to be a fire marshal,” Hazime said.
Following the departure of Loesche, Hazime said SFD staff had a number of conversations regarding the open position.
“Gary Johnson was filling in as an interim fire marshal,” Hazime said. “In the meantime, we had many conversations about the job responsibilities in addition to what he already does, which is the public information officer position. I’m confident in his ability to fill the role on a permanent basis.”
Besides Loesche, Hazime’s resignation was made public June 2. Members of the SFD Governing Board, meanwhile, appointed Assistant Chief Terry Keller to the interim fire chief role.
