Faces of New Canaan: Fire Chief Jack Hennessey

In July, New Canaan made history by bringing on the first-ever paid fire chief in the town service's existence. On Wednesday, New Canaan Patch sat down with new Fire Chief Jack Hennessey for a little Q&A about how the job's going so far and what's next for the department.

Hennessey is a seven-year veteran of the New Canaan Fire Department, but he's got more than 35 years of experience under his belt total, having been a career firefighter in Stamford starting in 1978. He used to work at the Turn of River department when it was a combination department that housed both volunteers and career firefighters in the beginning.

"They needed somebody here everyday that could manage the department and that was the role of the assistant chief," Hennessey said. "Since the colunteer chief had retired, they decided it was time to have a career chief and that's really all that happened. It's not really a big change in anything other than title, really."

Hennessey now oversees the entirety of New Canaan's Fire Department, including the volunteer fire company. Unlike Stamford, where the city has witnessed a bit of a contentious relationship between the career and volunteer firefighters, Hennessey takes the reigns of a department where the two corps work in unison, out of the same building, and work well together. He said he wished the volunteer side would bulk up a bit more, if anything.

"I wish we had more volunteers," he said. "The volunteers help out where they can. They all have full-time jobs. But they're toned-out to every call we go to. We're all very close. Everybody works here... It's a very harmonious and well-run organization [in New Canaan]."

Hennessey left Stamford to take a job as Assistant Chief, but said he left feeling good about his time there. Hennessey said he left Stamford only because he had enough years to retire. If he hadn't moved on to New Canaan, he'd probably still be working in Stamford.

"If I hadn't gotten this job, I'm sure I'd still be working in Stamford," he said. "Though I loved the job and Stamford was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it."

There's a lot of material upgrades going on with the department which makes the present day all the more exciting, Hennessey said. A new fire truck is coming to the station next February or March and the station itself is going to be getting a facelift with some new, stronger flooring that can hold the modern day, heavier trucks the structure wasn't initially built to hold. There's also a tiny, pesky issue of asbestos and lead throughout the building he's anxious to see remedied and a leaky basement wall causing mold that's also on the list for getting fixed.

Hennessey said money's been the issue for a lot of the problems that have built up, though he's been satisfied with the backing town officials have provided the department so far.

"The town's been very generous with us lately," he said. "They bought us a new truck and they're renovating the building. The fire department's relatively expensive thing to operate and with a larger budget we'd be able to do more, but right now we're kind of operating at maximum capacity for the amount of funding we're allowed to operate with and we're trying very hard to stay on budget. It's all about money, like any other department in town."

He said staffing is really the issue and tied that back in to his desire for a greater number of available volunteers. During the day, there's only six firefighters staffed, so while New Canaan is what he called a "relatively quiet town," they have to call out to nearby towns for mutual aid and backup more often than Hennessey would prefer. There's only 25 career firefighters and 30 volunteers.

"On an average day, we're adequately staffed," he said. "But I'd like to see us be a bit more self-sufficient. We have to rely on mutual aid and outside help regularly."

Hennessey said he's just happy to be involved in a department as he gets older in a capacity that allows him to continue living the dream in a way he is capable.

"I'm very lucky. I always wanted to be a firefighter," Hennessey said. "I'm lucky that I'm still doing it, I've been doing it for over 35 years. I'm very fortunate to be able to do it. I'm getting too old to be crawling around in burning buildings but I still get to be a firefighter, just not as strenuously as these guys. It's a very difficult job and as you get older, it gets harder."