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McComis named chief

New leader takes over department in transition

On Jan. 27, Bridgeport Mayor Randy Singleton announced that the city was putting the fire department back together.

A dwindling number of volunteers along with aging equipment and facility limitations were hamstringing the department. Plans were put in place for a $4 million bond for equipment and facilities upgrades. For personnel, they were taking a step in a new direction, hiring a full-time paid fire chief.

David McComis

By February, they’ve put some of that reconstruction process into place, with Bridgeport City Manager Chester Nolen hiring David McComis, a former prison warden at the Bridgeport Correctional Center, to lead the new course for the department.

McComis takes over as a paid chief, replacing longtime volunteer chief Terry Long, who saw his work load outside of the department increase to the point that managing both was becoming overwhelming.

The search for a paid chief was brief and involved interviewing two candidates, according to Nolen.

Six days after the council discussed the job description of a full-time fire chief in a pre-council workshop and with the job description still in “the draft process” Jan. 28, McComis was hired as chief. He started Feb. 3.

“Mr. McComis was available,” Nolen said. “While we didn’t go out and do a statewide search for a fire chief, we felt like we had a qualified candidate here – someone that could come onboard almost immediately, someone who had fire fighting and fire chief experience and who could step right in immediately. He knew the town and the capabilities of the folks here and what needed to happen. I felt like he was a natural fit.”

In McComis, they quickly found their guy – a local who had 10 years of fire chief experience in Bridgeport, but is not a certified firefighter. He has primarily worked in corrections for the past 30 years.

“As far as being a certified fire fighter, I am not,” McComis said. “I’m adding the hours up. If i don’t have enough hours to get certified, I will work and continue to work on that. As far as the administrative part of the job, if you ask most any city or fire chief, the fire chief is more administrative than bunkering up and jumping on a truck.”

McComis said he joined the Bridgeport Volunteer Fire Department in 1976, before becoming chief. He was in the role from 1980 to 1990.

Now, the title comes with a $82,456 salary, the same salary shared by Bridgeport Police Chief Steve Stanford.

McComis said he will be leaning both on his experience as a fire chief, as well as his experience in managing personnel and navigating a budget from his years as a prison warden. A large part of his job will be seeing the department through a transitional phase, with the construction of a new building and equipment upgrades on the horizon.

“What we’re trying to do is establish a paid/volunteer department in Bridgeport and a paid department further down the road,” McComis added. “I think my experience managing a correctional facility, managing people and managing a budget plays a big role in what we’re trying to do here.”

McComis said he’s been busy assessing the department’s current needs and developing a plan for the future.

A big step in the process is recruiting volunteers, as well as working with other fire chiefs in the county to see how they can help each other out.

Nolen said the biggest problem facing the department was the number of volunteers available to respond to emergencies. He said the department was down to 12 volunteers, despite having the capacity for 35 on the roster.

“It’s not just in Bridgeport, volunteer fire departments in the last few years have struggled to find and keep volunteers, especially with the oil field bust,” McComis said. “It’s not synonymous with just Bridgeport. However, it is an issue. At some point, you can control it with recruiting and with budgetary issues and management.”

“We have some equipment issues we need to address,” he added. “The department is in good shape, other than manpower.”

In addition to finding volunteers, McComis is busy logging his hours to become certified with the Texas Commission on Fire Protection.

According to The Texas Commission on Fire Protection minimum standards for the head of a suppression fire department, a fire chief must be certified by the commission as Head of a Suppression Fire Department within one year of appointment.

“My wish is to finish it within a year,” McComis said.

Part of the requirements of the subchapter that McComis would seemingly fall under, due to not currently being certified, would be providing documentation in the form of a sworn affidavit of 10 years of experience as an active volunteer firefighter, including documentation of attendance at 40 percent of the drills each year and 25 percent of the departments emergencies in a calendar year.

Nolen said McComis will have to update his certifications, but his role won’t involve actively fighting fires.

“He has certifications that are obviously not current. He will be doing some revision to his certifications,” Nolen said. “The long and the short of it is he’s not going to be out fighting the fires. He will be in an administrative capacity. He will probably be at the fire scene, at least initially, for a period of time, but he will be redoing certifications.”

Since McComis would be appointed on a probationary status, if he doesn’t complete his certification within a year, there could be consequences, according to an email sent to the Messenger by Texas Commission on Fire Protection Public Information officer Grace Wilson.

“There are many variables that affect each situation,” the manager of the Texas Commission on Fire Protection certification department explained to Wilson. “We work with the individuals and departments extensively to prevent this from occurring. An extension to the Head of Department probationary period can be granted depending on the circumstances. The worst case scenario would be that the individual has to be removed from their appointment to Head of department duties in our system.”

2 responses to “McComis named chief”

  1. murphree76234@yahoo.com says:

    Most ridiculous thing I’ve read that the city of Bridgeport has done. I’m sure Mr McComis is a nice enough guy. There are 100s of better suited fireman out there that would have been a better choice. Someone who actually has made a career in fire is someone the city should have hired. This is a good ole boy hiring. Corrections and Fire are two different careers.

  2. bmorrow1961 says:

    Where was he all these years when the pay was voluntary? Last time volunteering 1990?

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