Alan Newman has spent a long career as a Forest Lake firefighter, but he was recently named the permanent full-time chief.
Since Alan Newman stepped into the role of Forest Lake fire chief this spring, he’s certainly kept busy.
Newman, who was named the permanent full-time chief at the Forest Lake City Council’s Sept. 14 meeting, was named the part-time interim chief after former Chief Gary Sigfrinius retired in January. After some negotiations with other chief candidates failed to result in a permanent position and Newman gained further clarity from the city about the job’s duties, he was upgraded to full-time interim chief in May as the fire board’s Forest Lake and Columbus members considered the future of the position.
Since then, he’s secured department grants, successfully led a safe department response to a potentially explosive gas leak on Apartment Lane, led joint responses to several fires and provided the city with a reduced fire department budget for 2016 as many other department’s costs were rising. Perhaps most notably, while he was still part-time in April, he managed a multi-department fire at the Bergen’s Greenhouse location in Columbus. At 11 acres, the fire may have been the largest one ever fought by the Forest Lake Fire Department. The only one that Newman can think of that came close was the 1908 fire at Houle Oil Company, the current site of the old mill.
To Newman, however, it’s all just part of the job.
“Any fire department gets a lot of different things; it’s just the size extent (that’s different),” he said.
Still, Newman’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by city officials. Before the unanimous vote to appoint him to the post as Sigfrinius’s permanent replacement, multiple council members weighed in on Newman’s service to the city so far. Mayor Stev Stegner said he frequently hears of Newman’s professionalism and community outreach as he’s out in the community, and Councilman Michael Freer, who also sits on the fire board, said that the city and the board made a good choice when they approved Newman as interim chief following department dissatisfaction over the hiring process.
“Since then, I’ve had nothing but positive comments (about) Al,” he said, noting that the firefighters seem happier since Newman has been steering the ship full-time.
With a career that has included the formation of multiple businesses as well as a knowledge of the worlds of security and insurance, the fire department has been a constant in Newman’s life for 25 years. When he was 18 years old, he got in a car accident and needed repairs. His neighbor offered a solution.
“If I paid for the parts and helped him, … he would fix it, and he was a volunteer firefighter,” Newman explained.
Through his neighbor, Newman was introduced to the world of volunteer firefighting in Forest Lake. He was impressed by the spirit of cooperation and service that the department displayed, and he joined the ranks at age 19. As his tenure in the department increased, he rose through the ranks to become deputy chief before Sigfrinius’ retirement.
Though he’s happy to provide a valuable and life-saving service to residents, Newman said that’s not the main reason he’s stayed at the department so long – or why many other Forest Lake firefighters have kept responding to calls well past the 20-year retirement tenure. To him, there’s just something special about the fraternity of fire responders.
“Everybody is working for one goal, and that’s a really cool thing,” he said. “The brotherhood that you get from the department, the long-lasting friendships you get at the department – you see people at their best, performing at their top limits.”
Newman hopes to push his own limits not only as an effective fire-fighting chief, but also as an administrative one. Sigfrinius pushed the department toward many innovations, including overseeing many modern advances built into the new fire hall at the Forest Lake City Center. Newman views his own role as an extension of Sigfrinius’ progressive firefighting philosophy, and he has two specific areas he would like to improve.
The first area is better use of technology. Earlier this year, Newman procured a grant for the department to purchase five iPads, which are now used to manage complex fires as they are being fought on the ground. With a variety of applications, Newman said, firefighters can pull up building plans and firefighting strategies on the way to a structure fire, and once they are there, they can view a layout of where each firefighter is in real time via the device’s tracking capabilities. Those uses can be invaluable for large fires, he said, as things can get pretty “hectic” when the department response begins.
The second area Newman wants to work on is the reduction of the department’s Insurance Services Office rating, which helps determine property owners’ insurance coverage as it relates to fire protection. The ISO is ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, with lower scores displaying the ISO’s determination that the department can better respond to structure fires. In Forest Lake, homes less than 5 miles from the fire hall have an ISO of 5, while homes 5-7 miles away have a score of 10 (with water access) and homes more than 7 miles away have a score of 10. In Columbus, the scores are the same, except that homes within 5 miles from the station have an ISO of 6.
Newman said the ratings are based on a variety of factors, including one big one the department can’t control: the proximity of a fire hall to each individual building. However, he said, there are also ways the department could try to reduce the ISO – everything from performing certain training to stocking vehicles with certain equipment to simply making sure all paperwork is appropriately filed.
“I’m going to do everything I can do to try to reduce it because that affects every one of our citizens,” he said, pointing out that an ISO reduction could save property owners hundreds of dollars in insurance each year, a far greater impact than recent property tax changes pondered by the City Council. “That’s huge savings, and it impacts everyone.”
Though he has big plans, Newman gave all the credit for department success to the 34 men and women who work under his command.
“I manage the day-to-day stuff, but it’s really the membership that makes the department,” he said.