08/22/2026
Happy Birthday to one of our Assistant Chiefs, Heath Dalton!
He’s as “The Man, The Myth, The Legend” as it gets around here, and if you spend much time around any of us, you’ll hear a good Heath story in no time!
We’ve seen him rip gates apart by hand to access burning buildings and operate flaming chainsaws in the midst of some high stakes wildfires. We’ve seen some real Dukes of Hazzard shenanigans out of him a few times when we’ve had to make it across rural fields when seconds count.
In all seriousness though - Heath has built our technical rescue teams as his own passion project to better the district and save more lives. He’s invested himself wholeheartedly in our rope and water rescue programs, and is becoming a leader not just in our own district but across the county. He might be inching his way towards AARP as the crews reminded him today, but he’s the first to challenge them to a mile run, fit test, and some push ups.
Heath lives the fire service ethics and is the first to help someone catch a dog, move a couch, or whatever “extras” we might get called to or just happen across ourselves. More than once he has dropped everything where he’s at and ran his own personal car or ATV to a call, when he knew he needed to just get there fast and help out. In fact, we’ve seen him run so fast he ran right out his shoes.
Our district is better because we have a Heath, and therefore so is our community. So thank you, Heath - for everything you do - and Happy Birthday!
***Now we’re going to go back to pretending we don’t like you.
