Talking with David Busz nearly 10 months after he started as the Montesano Fire Chief isn’t exactly catching him on the first day in the office.

But that time in the seat means Busz was able to speak much more clearly about his nearly first year in the big chair.

We sat down with Busz on Friday to talk about the Montesano Fire Department, how he came to be here, and the future.

The chief’s hat was never one of his great ambitions, Busz said. He’d been a volunteer with the department until about 10 years ago, and until a conversation with Police Chief Brett Vance, hadn’t considered the opportunity.

“There was no burning desire as a child to line up the fire trucks and talk on the radio,” Busz said. “This was Mayor Samuel taking a leap of faith and believing in me. She was willing to take a risk and work on it.”

Taking the position on Jan. 1, 2023, Busz is working hard for Montesano, he said.

“I do love this town,” Busz said. “It’s a fantastic community.”

Many pieces to the puzzle

The job is much broader than he initially figured, Busz said. Experience in areas of firefighting such as human resources or finances that he gained with the Seattle Fire Department, where he still serves as a lieutenant with nearly 30 years of services, are standing him in good stead here.

“It’s much varied and broader than I thought. The responsibilities are much broader. Day to day there are many more tasks that have to be completed than I ever imagined,” Busz said. “In a day to day, I will throw ladders to drill with anybody, paid staff or volunteers that come in. The next, minute I’ll be at the 911 center having an ops board meeting talking about building out the new 911 system.”

“There’s a lot of layers,” Busz said.

He’s also working to figure out how to work closely with Grays Harbor Fire District 2, Busz said, whose area of operations neatly sandwiches Montesano’s, comparing it to a donut and donut hole.

Training training training

Training up Montesano’s relatively young department has been a priority, Busz said. It’s the job of firefighters to pass on their skills and experience, and to always be ready to engage positively.

“As far as the training component, that dovetails in. I love the training component. Every firefighter is an amalgamation of every firefighter before him or her,” Busz said. “No matter what my energy levels or issues are that day, I need to be sincere, and pass that on.”

The vast spectrum of calls firefighters respond to demands that they be ready to handle anything from fires to medical emergencies, Busz said — striving to do their best is all the department can ask.

“I take training very seriously. There’s so many facets to it. You can be an awesome firefighter, but you need to be an awesome EMT. Or paramedic. Or building inspector. You owe it to the citizens,” Busz said. “We cannot master any of them. But we can put ourselves out there so we’re the best we can be.”

Busz said he’s also working to integrate smoothly into the county’s emergency management scheme, working with people like Vance, Leonard Johnson, Hannah Cleverly at the county, and other fire chiefs like Hoquiam’s Matt Miller or Aberdeen’s Dave Golding to fit smoothly into the overall picture.

“It’s been fantastic,” Busz said. “There isn’t these borders and boundaries. Everyone’s really accessible.”

Busz said he’s also working with the department’s officers, learning from them just as he’s passing on such wisdom and experience as he has.

“Sometimes you can learn a lot just by shutting your mouth. You never know who’s going to teach you,” Busz said. “I’m OK not being the smartest guy in the room. I know there are far smarter people in the room, and I want to surround myself with better people than me.”

Long-term financial planning

“My emphasis is having a competent, professional, compassionate fire department and being good stewards of the community,” Busz said. “The most central at the Montesano fire station, I’m really working forward to getting a diesel exhaust removal system. That’s going to be one of my major points.”

The exhaust removal system is a major priority, to remove the toxic fumes from the garage and mitigate the risk of cancer and other illnesses for firefighters, Busz said.

He’s also working on the process of putting together a long-term financial plan for the department, looking not just at next year but five or 10 years out, Busz said.

“We are an agency that responds to crisis,” Busz said. “We should not be operating in a crisis.”

Things like engines and medic units have useful lifespans, and the end of those service lives shouldn’t be a surprise to the department and require them to go to the public with their pockets turned out.

“When people call 911 they want people showing up immediately,” Busz said. “Not worried about vehicle breakdowns or worrying if there’s enough personnel on scene.”

Busz said he also hopes to get volunteer numbers up, a perennial problem for departments across the county and the country.

“Every agency is down. The volunteerism heart of the community … it’s not maybe as robust as it used to be, or maybe people have more things competing for their time,” Busz said. “The spirit of the volunteerism, it just isn’t what it was.”

Busz said he hopes to recapture some of the spirit of community service for the department.

“If you are able bodied and want to challenge yourself, we would love for those people to come in and be part of something bigger than yourself,” Busz said. “We’re looking for those folks to give back.”

Busz voiced his support for the core of volunteers currently with the department.

“The volunteers we have are rock solid. They’re committed,” Busz said. “I would love more numbers of the same folks.”

Busz affirmed his commitment to the department and the community.

“The station has been here about 125 years,” Busz said. “This is our time to make sure we pass it on to the next generation, intact and even better.”

Contact Senior Reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757-621-1197 or mlockett@thedailyworld.com.