> Home > News Releases > Deputy fire chief selected for Arizona Fire Service Hall of Fame
Deputy fire chief selected for Arizona Fire Service Hall of Fame
Aug. 25, 2009
Contact: Tiffani Nichols, Public Information Officer, (480) 312-1816
Deputy fire chief selected for Arizona Fire Service Hall of Fame
Scottsdale Deputy Chief James “Jim” Ford will be inducted into the Arizona Fire Service Hall of Fame on Sept. 10. Established in 1998, the Arizona Fire Service Hall of Fame recognizes individuals who have made a significant, positive contribution to the Arizona Fire Service and their community.
Chief Ford has a long and distinguished fire service career. He began his fire service career in the City of Scottsdale, on August 1, 1975, with Rural/Metro Fire Department. He was a charter member of the City of Scottsdale Fire Department when it began providing service to the Citizens of Scottsdale on July 1, 2005.
Although Chief Ford’s entire career has been spent in one community, the positive impact of his leadership and advocacy continues to have regional, national, and international impacts.
Chief Ford is the face of commercial and residential fire sprinkler systems in a community that is unwilling to accept a single fire fatality as a “cost of doing business.” His research, writings and advocacy for automatic sprinkler protection has established the City of Scottsdale and Arizona as one of the national and international leaders in built-in community sprinkler protection.
Chief Ford authored the very successful and popular report “Automatic Sprinklers – A 10 Year Study” on the history and effects of the ground breaking, automatic fire sprinkler code in Scottsdale, Arizona. This document was originally published in 1997 to provide local fire service leaders with actual statistics and documentation of the impact of built-in sprinkler protection. It has become a significant historical and reference publication that has been used by numerous local and national fire service jurisdictions to introduce, address and obtain residential sprinkler ordinances.
Visitors from across the state, nation and world have all come to Scottsdale to experience and evaluate actual installations and the overall concept of community and residential sprinkler protection, including international representatives from Sweden, Canada, Scotland, England, Japan, Germany, Australia, Russia and the Netherlands.
Chief Ford has also worked with sprinkler industry representatives and manufacturers to design and test new applications of residential sprinkler protection, played a key role in the remarkable and historic effort to get the requirement for residential sprinklers included in the 2009 Edition of the International Residential Code (IRC), and is actively involved in a wide-range of community service advisory boards and activities.
Scottsdale Fire Department congratulates Chief Ford on this remarkable accomplishment and his continued dedication to the community and fire service.
News Releases RSS Feed