Former Alameda County Fire Chief Dies Monday

Former Alameda County Fire Chief Bill McCammon died Monday at the age of 61, department officials said. McCammon led the department for 13 years before retiring and unsuccessfully running for state Assembly in 2006, when he was narrowly defeated by Mary Hayashi.

He was named Fire Chief of the Year by the California Fire Chiefs Association before his retirement. McCammon was the department’s first fire chief, taking the post when it was created in 1993. McCammon was an Oakland native, attending public schools there before transferring from Merritt Junior College to the University of California at Davis, where he got a degree in agricultural science and management. He was a firefighter since 1978.

As fire chief in Alameda County, he oversaw a department of 260 firefighters servicing an area of more than 250,000 people with 21,000 calls for emergency services each year.

After retiring from the fire department, McCammon went on to work for the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority, a coordinating agency to help improve inter-departmental communications for East Bay emergency responders.

—By Bay City News