With the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1, the funding became available to hire a fire chief for the Town of Fountain Hills as the transition is made from contract service with Rural/Metro Corp. to an in-house Town operation of fire and emergency medical services. In making a choice, Town officials looked no further than the man who has been sitting in the chief’s chair with Rural/Metro in the community since 2016, Dave Ott.

Ott began his career with Rural/Metro but spent some time during his fire service career with the Salt River Pima/Maricopa Indian Community Fire Department where he was the fire marshal and oversaw the code compliance for the construction of the Talking Stick Resort and Salt River Fields, as well as significant expansion of businesses in the Pima Road corridor. Ott came to Fountain Hills in 2013 to serve as assistant chief and fire marshal. He has been a resident of the community for 24 years.

The current assignment for Ott is to transition the Town’s contract fire service to an in-house Town of Fountain Hills-operated fire department. He said the work is on track to complete the changeover by the end of the current calendar year. Offer letters are currently being prepared for all the Rural/Metro personnel currently working in Fountain Hills.

“The (firefighters) are committed to Fountain Hills and really have been the Town of Fountain Hills Fire Department,” Ott said. “Now we are making it so.”

As part of the transition the department will name a training captain by fall and will also bring in a person to oversee human resources for the department, and a current part-time IT specialist for the Town has been elevated to a full-time position to handle the information technology aspect for the fire service.

The Town is also working on formal intergovernmental agreements to provide communications services – this is actually two agreements, according to Ott. One is dispatch services and the second deals with the communications infrastructure. The communications dispatch element is through the City of Mesa. The regional TOPAZ consortium provides the infrastructure. Another agreement would be for support services such as vehicle mechanical service as well as communications equipment and servicing. Ott said these agreements are awaiting approval from the City of Mesa but should be ready for Fountain Hills Town Council consideration in September.

Ott is also working to maintain and enhance the department’s mutual aid partnerships, specifically with Fort McDowell, Salt River, Scottsdale and the Rio Verde Fire District.

“We have good relationships now,” Ott said. “The change to Town department puts us in a better position to grow those relationships and enhance the agreements.”

He said the objective is to have a system that is close to automatic aid. Three of the agencies mentioned have new fire chiefs as well and Ott said this is an opportunity to work seamlessly to provide better service to the citizens in these communities.