By Sarah Opdahl

“I remember the town siren blowing when I was a little kid. I would just run to the window and watch my neighbor—one of the earliest fire marshals in New Fairfield—leave,” Chris Alward recalls, “I had no family legacy in the fire service. I just took a liking to it, and I counted the days and years down until I was sixteen years old to join as a volunteer at Company A.” When New Fairfield’s fire marshal position was recently scaled down to part-time, Chris was pleased as he realized it would uniquely marry with the current roles he is serving.

Chris’s years in service began as is typical for junior New Fairfield Volunteer Fire Department members. After pumping gas at GIl’s, he would spend time at the firehouse, checking and cleaning the trucks, and drilling with the firefighters. “I was consumed with it,” he said, immediately taking the courses needed for certification when he turned eighteen. Throughout his time in the firehouse, Chris was amazed by the work of both firefighters and paramedics, which led to him earning a paramedic science degree at Northeastern University. He then returned home to New Fairfield, where he would raise his family, while working as both a paramedic and firefighter in Ridgefield. His position in Ridgefield grew over the years, to include his roles now as a lieutenant and a deputy fire marshal. In addition, for the last two decades he has worked as a paramedic for Danbury Hospital, often in service of residents in New Fairfield.

When New Fairfield’s fire marshal position became part time, Chris acted on the opportunity right away and went to Town Hall to introduce himself to First Selectman Melissa Lindsey, who has since sung his praises in many Board meetings. In the role for just over a month, Chris has spent time working to modernize the processes, which were previously maintained on paper. He is creating a property and incident database that will partner with the records management system that is used to report to the State, which will allow the town to run statistics and track data. The system will provide a schedule for inspections, previous violations, and compliance, plus feed to the Tax office. Chris looks forward to working with the business owners in Town who he says he has a “good rapport with” and he has received a lot of positive feedback from them in recent weeks.

Given his roles, and some concern regarding his possibly being stretched too thin, Chris was happy to explain that he is available and has capacity for the pos ition. “It is hard for the layperson that does not understand how emergency services work. Everybody in emergency services does multiple jobs and holds multiple hats, and that is just the way it is.” Outside of New Fairfield, he currently works two twenty-four hour shifts per week—sometimes the night is quiet and he is able to sleep, other times he is up all night. Five other days of the week he welcomes working on New Fairfield’s needs.

Chris is looking forward to continuing to educate New Fairfield’s residents through a monthly column in this newspaper and each will have a theme. His first two columns featured safety information on grilling and fireworks. He is also looking forward to meeting with groups, such as the Senior Center community and veterans, “to sit down and have coffee with them and talk about fire safety or anything emergency related.” He said, “I think it is important that people see me out in the community.” Most importantly for all residents, Chris said, “I am just excited to get the fire safety word out there.”