Fascination Prompts Career at Belmont Fire

Ever since he can remember, fire trucks fascinated Angus Davison.

Growing up in Cambridge, he ran to the window whenever he heard a siren and – when his family lived in Rome for a year – he clamored for a peek every time he heard the European-style alarm.

When he was about six or seven years old, current assistant fire chief was in a drugstore, buying candy. On his way outside, he discovered a woman had tripped over a bicycle and firefighters were right there with their rescue ladder to assist her.

"I was fascinated," Davison said. "I was just a little kid then but the idea of being able to help someone in any situation was amazing to me."

Yet he didn't consider joining a fire department. Davison graduated from high school and went off to college in St. Louis.

After three months, however, he thought he didn't have enough self-discipline to continue his studies so he moved to Belmont in 1979 and worked in various jobs including for the former VW dealership on Trapelo Road and in real estate management.

It wasn't until Davison had a conversation with his father-in-law, former Belmont firefighter Fred Metts, that he became interested in the profession. He took the firefighters exam and passed it with a score of 99 out of 100.

"But that was in the early 1980s and no one was hiring," Davison said. "I took the test eight times and got a 99 on each one."

Metts told him he'd have a better chance at being hired in a fire department if he became an Emergency Medical Technician.

So Davison took the training and worked for the Chaulk Ambulance out of the Brighton station for several years. In 1988, he was hired in Belmont and has been with the department ever since – serving as a firefighter until 1997 and lieutenant and then captain of the Fire Prevention Department until 2001.

In 2004, Davison was appointed assistant chief of the Belmont Fire Department.

The 22 years he's spent in Belmont have been wonderful, Davison.

"I'm intrigued by having the ability to help people," he said. "We're called for everything – fires, motor vehicle accidents, structural issues with buildings, flood relief like this March – and we respond to the community's needs."

Although Davison works five days a week now, he's on call for seven and always has a scanner running when he's home.

Being an assistant chief involves countless administrative tasks for Davison.

He fills in for Chief David Frizzell in his absence; oversees the fire prevention division, training, staffing for shifts, orientation for new hires, software fire reports; is in charge of department inventory, maintenance of vehicles and their annual testing and all equipment; and writes all grants for the department.

Davison is also the director of the Local Emergency Planning Committee and the assistant director of the Emergency Management Agency. He and Frizzell also go out with firefighters on all major calls involving fires, large accidents, natural disasters or when a particular shift has reached its limit of resources.

This relatively new position is definitely a change from the days when he was a firefighter, Davison said. "When I was a firefighter, it was very straight-forward as to what I was supposed to do," he said.

"As you move up in the ranks, there are more people you report to and that involves politics and bureaucracy. Doing that and finding a focus is a challenge because there's so much to do in this position on a daily basis."

He and his wife, Karen, live in Belmont. They have two grown children – a 24-year-old daughter who lives with her husband in Dracut and a 21-year-old son who is about to start his senior year at the University of Connecticut. As often as they can, Davison said, he and his wife visit their house in Maine where he fishes, water-skis and boats.

Davison's hopes for the department are that it receives the resources it needs to provide the services it should to the community.

"We have a group of people who really want to do a good job but don't have the resources which can be frustrating," Davison said.

"It's hard sometimes to be second-guessed by the public when you're just trying to do a good job," he said.

Davison referred to comments residents made during the recent Town Meeting and two budget forums held by town officials in May, pointing out that the department doesn't have as many fires to fight as in prior years.

Yet the firefighters still need to be trained in cased of fires and, without that experience, someone could get hurt, he said.

"Emergency medical calls are up and I am wondering how this will affect our service in the future now that baby boomers are growing up and needing EMTs more often."

The department's primary role is fire prevention, Davison said, and it needs resources to do a good job.