In March, Joe Moore retired as Verde Valley Fire District fire chief, after taking up the job in November 2018.
The VVFD Governing Board selected Daniel Johnson, formerly of the Daisy Mountain Fire District, as the new chief in March.
After about a month on the job, Johnson is beginning to get used to being chief, but he also feels that he has a lot of work left to do in acclimating to a new department that has been doing things for years before he arrived.
“There are some guys who have grown up in this community, that have graduated from the high school in this community, and are now serving this community in a way that I think is an amazing story. They’re passionate about their job, they’re passionate about our organization, and they’re passionate about our community,” Johnson said. “The guys have been really accepting. I do think it’s important for a leader to understand your history and respect that history, because it’s important. You need to know where you come from to truly know where you need to go.”
In Johnson’s view, his role as fire chief is less about the specifics of fire suppression or the department’s operations, than it is about the staff, and his role inspiring them to do their jobs the best they can.
Though he was born and raised in Peoria, Johnson spent one year playing college football in San Diego, before moving back to the state, which inspired him to begin coaching youth football.
He describes coaching as one of the most satisfying experiences of his life, and sees his role as fire chief as similar to coaching.
“If you have a boss or a leader or a mentor that cares about you, it brings out the best in you,” Johnson said. “Response times are important — all the operations stuff is tremendously important because that’s what we do to protect the community and serve the community, but as much as we’re serving the community, I’m also serving the members of the organization.”
Johnson sees the VVFD as a fire district set up for growth, as the Verde Valley, especially some of the unincorporated areas covered by the VVFD, is poised for population growth in coming years. In this way, he sees a parallel to the district he left. When Johnson joined the Daisy Mountain Fire District in Anthem in 2000, he was the 23rd employee, and when he left as Deputy Chief in 2015 he was one of over a hundred.
Johnson also sees a parallel between the two fire districts, in covering large rural areas, with lots of wild brush that can potentially catch fire.
“I don’t think the fires are any different,” Johnson said. “Operationally, there are some challenges at times with some of the rural areas not having hydrant systems, but that’s where we have the tankers and we have the tanker operations that we had to do at Daisy Mountain as well to support the fire fight. That’s one of the nice things about the organization. It wasn’t a huge difference in the community and in the types of equipment we’re using to serve those communities.”
After a month on the job, Johnson says that the biggest surprise about the VVFD so far is the extra efforts shown by the staff. He says that in comparison to Daisy Mountain, there are fewer administrative staff, and he is impressed by how much the rest of the department is picking up the slack.
“The firefighters, the captains and battalion chiefs, engineers and the administrative personnel — they are doing so much more than I expected,” Johnson said. “That was the biggest surprise, the amount of work, and the amount of effort they are putting in on a day to day basis to keep the organization going. One of the things that’s different about a fire district vs. a municipal fire department is that fire districts are their own HR. They’re their own payroll. They’re their own facilities department. They’re their own fleet department. We don’t have those other cities’ functions to support us. We’re an all-encompassing organization.”
Johnson still sees himself as a newcomer to this facility, but he expresses a hope to become part of the family, and to be able to use his coaching skills to inspire the staff to be the best versions of themselves.
“There’s no other feeling like when you truly know someone, when you’re truly setting out to make a difference in someone’s life that day, and you make a difference,” Johnson said. “There’s no other feeling like that.”
