SHUTESBURY — Shutesbury Fire Chief Walter R. Tibbetts, a third-generation firefighter and 40-year veteran of the department, is hanging up his personal protective gear and retiring from the force after a decadeslong run that includes 28 years as chief.
Tibbetts has mulled retirement since 2018 after a triumphant show of support from town residents ended a prolonged contract negotiation that secured him a higher salary. His new contract, which gave him an additional three years in the department and an optional fourth, came to a close on Thursday, the last day of June.
“I always thought this would be the hardest thing, leaving the department, but my time here is coming to a natural close — I’ve had my time, and it’s been almost too long,” he joked in an interview at the fire station this week. His last day was Thursday.
In addition to fire chief, Tibbetts also chairs the town’s Cemetery Commission, the Lake Wyola Advisory Committee, and the Franklin County Emergency Communications System oversight committee — roles he won’t be resigning from in his twilight years.
Tibbetts describes the job’s occupational hazards with scientific precision — which carcinogens associated with smoke intake most threaten fighter’s lives, how vehicle fires can be attributed to the advent of lithium batteries and the popularity of hybrid and electric cars susceptible to a crescendoing cycle of flammability called thermal runaway, and the precise capacity of the pumper tanker needed to put out fires on Route 202, where the Quabbin Reservoir is just out of range.
Lightweight construction with newer, more combustible insulation, Tibbets said, have accelerated the growth of house fires — which, years ago, could last up to 30 minutes from incipient growth, to flashover, before finally reaching the decay stage — to barely minutes.
But the job, he said, is just as much about people, their losses, and their survival as it is about the mechanics of fire safety.
“We see people on what’s more often than not the worst day of their lives, that’s the job. Holidays, birthdays, they get thrown out the window when the pager goes off — you can never predict when people will need you,” Tibbetts said.
And the rate at which residents in Shutesbury have needed their fire chief has increased dramatically in recent years.
Tibbetts noted the expansion of his role to include layers of oversight, training, and medical emergency response that didn’t exist when he first joined the department at age 16. Back then, he said, “fire departments were fire departments.”
“We used to jump off the tractor and onto the truck,” he continued, a very different reality from the day-to-day demands of contemporary fighters, who, in small towns like Shutesbury, whose population hovers around 1,200 people, respond to anywhere between 150 and 180 calls a year.
His increased responsibility has paled in comparison to the department’s decreasing capacity — last year, the chief issued a written open letter, a “request for help,” calling for community members to join the department as firefighters, and the staffing shortage hasn’t abated.
Not only will the department need to fill the position of fire chief, but the chief’s deputy is also vacant. The hourly wage and sporadic, on-call nature of the job aren’t much of a draw, Tibbets said, and the dangers of the job — not only the immediate risks of entering a conflagrating building but the long term health risks associated with fighting fires — are becoming more widely recognized.
Through tears, Tibbetts recalled the passing of former Shutesbury Fire Chief Alan Lego, his mentor, who died from a brain tumor.
Tibbetts on many occasions has been not only the bearer but the receiver of bad news, and, while he has never lost a member of his department in the line of duty, the emotional toll of routinely witnessing scorched-earth loss accumulates over a 40-year career — “fire is fire, and dead is dead,” he commented.
In his retirement, Tibbetts looks forward to savoring the moments he has remaining with his octogenarian mother who suffers from dementia. After so many decades reporting to the scene of tragedy after tragedy, his next decades will be a matter of celebrating life.
