Paul Ford, former Fall River fire chief, takes top job in Portsmouth

SWANSEA — Anyone who thought Paul Ford, a 35-year retired career firefighter and fire chief for nearly a decade in Fall River and Brookline, was ready to permanently leave the hot seat would be wrong.

Ford, 57, who lives with his family on Cummings Road in Swansea, has stepped across the state line in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, to accept the community’s fire chief’s job.

He begins the $96,000-a-year post on Tuesday, he said.

“I hope to be there a number of years. I’m really looking forward to working with them,” Ford said when reached Friday night. “I’m excited.”

This will be the third full-time fire chief’s job for Ford, not including stints as interim chief in Sturbridge and Oxford, and his first in Rhode Island.

Less than seven years ago, when Ford’s contract as chief in Fall River was soon expiring and left in limbo under former Mayor Will Flanagan, he pursued options and was hired for that job in Brookline after a national search.

He retired from that department and as chief in 2016 after 4½ years there.

He began his career and had been with the Fall River Fire Department, in the city he was raised, from 1983 until 2011 on a department with 232 firefighters and 35 paramedics when he left, he said in a July 12 letter to Portsmouth.

Ford was Fall River’s first non-civil service fire chief, while scoring the top mark on the fire chief’s exam given when that appointment process was in place.

Ford, who spent many years as a trainer of firefighters with the Massachusetts Fire Academy in Stowe and at other sites that included Fall River, shared his former ambitions to Portsmouth officials.

“For many years, my long-range goal was to retire from the Fall River Fire Department as the fire chief and then seek a position on a department on Aquidneck Island,” he wrote.

He said working in Portsmouth fulfills that goal of the area that includes the Tiverton, Newport and Middletown fire departments.

His new department has 36 full-time firefighters and a fire marshal, with two advanced life-saving ambulances and eight-person shifts.

Ford said he was encouraged by the 7-0 Portsmouth Town Council vote Monday night to appoint him.

Both a screening committee and Town Administrator Richard Rainer enthusiastically recommended him to the council over nine applicants interviewed, said Rainer’s letter.

Rainer called Ford “an exceptional candidate,” noting his lengthy fire chief’s tenure, 35 years of firefighting experience and “incredible track record in obtaining grant funding and managing department budgets.”

That included Fall River obtaining the largest national SAFER grant in the country when state midyear cuts resulted in a massive reduction in the fire department.

Email Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com or call him at 508-676-2573.