Halstead Sworn In As Fire Marshal

By Andrew Gorosko

Amid family and friends, Bill Halstead took the oath of office Monday morning in the Mary Hawley Room at Edmond Town Hall, becoming the town’s fire marshal.

Mr Halstead replaces George Lockwood in that post. Mr Lockwood will remain a deputy fire marshal. Mr Lockwood became the town’s first full-time fire marshal in 1998.

Mr Halstead will work out of the town offices in Canaan House at Fairfield Hills.

“I thought it was very nice,” Mr Halstead said of the ceremonies.

The chain of command in the fire marshal’s office is now: Mr Halstead, Mr Lockwood, and deputy marshals Henry Stormer, Rich Frampton, and Dave Ober. Scott Lee is a fire inspector. Dave Hardt is a special deputy fire marshal for Garner Correctional Institution.

In December, the Board of Fire Commissioners named Mr Halstead as the new fire marshal. Mr Halstead has been a town deputy fire marshal since 1984.

Since June 1997, when he had retired as the fire chief at Fairfield Hills, Mr Halstead worked in the town fire marshal’s office with Mr Lockwood. Mr Halstead had served as Fairfield Hills’ fire chief for 17 years, overseeing fire protection at the sprawling state psychiatric hospital. 

Mr Halstead also serves as chief of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company, having headed that organization since August 1978.

Mr Halstead, 52, of Cottonwood Trail, comes from a long line of firefighters and women’s fire auxiliary members.

Mr Halstead’s son, B.J., is a Sandy Hook firefighter, Sandy Hook’s representative on the Board of Fire Commissioners, and a fire/ambulance dispatcher at the town’s emergency dispatch center in Edmond Town Hall. Mr Halstead’s daughter, Karin, is a Sandy Hook firefighter, the secretary of that fire company, and an emergency medical technician with the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps. Mr Halstead’s other daughter, Krista, is a graduate student at the University of New Haven.

The fire marshal’s office will continue its annual inspection program of approximately 600 locations in town. These include places such as schools, day care centers, churches, restaurants, stores, structures with three or more apartments, and various places of assembly. 

Mr Halstead plans to expand the town’s use of a computerized fire reporting system that compiles information on fire calls in a nationally-accepted format.

As the town fire marshal, Mr Halstead will be responsible for overseeing fire investigations in the town’s five fire districts – Sandy Hook, Newtown Hook and Ladder, Botsford, Hawleyville, and Dodgingtown.

Besides fire investigations, fire marshals issue blasting permits, inspect service stations, inspect fuel tanker trucks, and supervise the removal of underground fuel storage tanks, among other tasks.

Mr Halstead said he hopes that in the future, fire codes will require that all new buildings – residential, commercial, and industrial – contain fire sprinklers as a fire safety measure.

A member of several fire organizations, Mr Halstead belongs to the International Association of Arson Investigators.