New North Callaway Fire Protection District chief appointed week after mass resignation
Euphenie Andre
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The North Callaway Fire Protection District has a new, but familiar leader.
Just one week after the previous fire chief was terminated, the district announced that Matthew Walton has taken over the fire chief position since Tuesday. Walton is no stranger to the department. He previously served for more than 20 years before retiring.
Now, he’s stepping back into leadership following the resignations of 13 department members in response to recent internal changes.
The North Callaway Board of Directors confirmed it had fired the former chief and a volunteer due to “several months of attempts to address unacceptable behavior.” The board did not elaborate further on the nature of those issues.
When asked about the situation involving his predecessor, Walton said he wasn’t informed about the specifics.
“I don’t have any information on that. I came in as a request to come back to help, since I already knew a lot about the department, and I’m letting the board handle anything with it,” Walton said.
In the wake of the departures, Walton says the department currently has around 10-12 active personnel but would like to have at least 20-30. Boosting recruitment and improving retention are Walton’s top priorities. He said the department is working on new strategies to increase engagement and visibility in the community.
“Our plan is better communication,” Walton said. “We’re going to be working on getting a website built, reaching out to the public. [We’ll] hopefully start doing some more public events like to-touch-a-truck and some open houses and stuff with the fire department,”
The department responds to roughly 900 emergency calls per year. Last month alone, it handled about 30 calls.
Despite the recent leadership changes, some residents in North Callaway County say they’ve always been able to rely on their local fire department.
“I haven’t really ever head of any situation where we haven’t had a first responder or a firefighter ot someone in those fields make it to where they needed to be when they needed,” Chloe Holtkamp said.
As of now, the department does not have any upcoming recruiting events scheduled. All roles within the department remain volunteer-based and are not paid positions.