On Dec. 20, the Santa Maria City Council welcomed a fresh face to the fire department when Dan Orr was sworn in as the new fire chief. Orr is taking over for Jeff Jones, who retired after seven years at the top.
According to Orr, the city manager’s office selected him because of his experience and knowledge of the profession.
Orr got his first taste of firefighting during his time in Yuma, Ariz., where he served in the Marine Corps. During that time, he said, he had an “inkling” that firefighting was something he might want to pursue.
It was after the Marine Corps that Orr talked to Chief Bob Newman of San Luis Obispo about what it would take to become a firefighter.
The rest is history.
Orr started his career as a pay-call firefighter for the city of Pismo Beach. He gradually made his way through the ranks in Pismo Beach and, 14 years later, left as fire chief.
According to Orr, Santa Maria is an appealing city because it’s large and has more stations. Orr has been with the Santa Maria Fire Department for 10 years, most recently acting as battalion chief. As fire chief, he’ll be serving one of the largest cities on the Central Coast.
“Thus far, it’s been a smooth transition, but I’m quickly realizing the enormity of the job,” he said.
Orr admits that the “people” aspect of the job takes tremendous work.
Coming into this position, Orr’s main objective is to make sure the needs of the city are met. The first thing on his to-do list is staffing Fire Station No. 5, one of the new stations currently under construction.
“That’s the most important goal right now,” he said.
To do this, the city will need a couple million dollars. With that in mind, the city is proposing a quarter-cent sales tax.
“If you spend $100 in taxable goods, that quarter-cent sales tax is 25 cents,” Orr said.
Although it may not sound like a lot of money, the total sum would go a long way toward helping the fire department reach its goals.
Ideally, that money would be used to hire nine firefighters, who would staff Fire Station No. 5 and help reduce response times.
“This is a very important, time-oriented job,” Orr emphasized.
According to Orr, fire crews currently respond to calls within a five-minute window 63 percent of the time.
The five-minute window is the time it takes for the call to go through and the firefighters to arrive.
“These five minutes are huge for medical aid,” Orr explained. “Say you stop breathing for five minutes. At that point, the brain is dead and the rate of survival is low.”
For the fire department, those five minutes are just as crucial. According to Orr, a fire will reach a point called “flash over” within that time, which also results in a lower survival rate for victims.
Orr said more firefighters could potentially improve response times by almost 30 percent.
“My job now is to make sure the firefighters have the proper tools, to ensure fiscally that they can make a difference, and to hire the best people for the job,” Orr said.
If the tax measure were to pass, the money would also help restore eight positions in the Santa Maria Police Department’s Gang Task Force. A portion of the money would also go toward repairing the Santa Maria River Levee.
Additionally, Orr said the fire department has been working hard with the Latino community to create a better understanding of a firefighter’s role—since, Orr said, firefighters are sometimes known as “thieves” in Mexico.
To combat this perception, the fire department has been working to educate the Latino community on what the fire department does, as well as what they can do as civilians in emergency situations.
“We are very much trying to make the fire department more accessible,” Orr said.
Despite having so much on his plate, Orr still comes to work every day with the same passion and dedication to his job he started with as a pay-call firefighter so many years ago.
“It’s an interesting profession—where else can you go to work to make a difference in people’s lives? To be the leader of that organization is unbelievable, and to be able to work with such a caring community is truly an honor,” Orr said.
Contact Contributor Kristina Sewell through Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2012.