Justin Wilson, Fire Chief

Justin Wilson went to college with the goal of becoming a firefighter. But plans changed, and he eventually got a job in the corporate world. Several years after he moved to River Falls, he decided to join the River Falls Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter. Twelve years later, Justin is now leading the department as its new fire chief. Among the biggest challenges he faces early on is helping lead the department through a major renovation of the fire station. 

Chief Wilson joins the Kinni Cast to talk more about what those renovations will entail, why the volunteer firefighter model works so well in River Falls, and dives into the camaraderie and the bond that those in the department have built over the years. All of that and more on an all new Kinni Cast.

Learn more about the City of River Falls at www.rfcity.org. Follow the City of River Falls on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Transcript

Justin Wilson went to college with the goal of becoming a firefighter. But plans changed, and he eventually got a job in the corporate world. Several years after he moved to River Falls, he decided to join the fire department as a volunteer firefighter. Twelve years later, Justin is now leading the department as its new fire chief. Among the biggest challenges he faces early on is helping lead the department through a major renovation of the fire station. Chief Wilson joins the Kinni Cast to talk more about what those renovations will entail, why the volunteer firefighter model works so well in River Falls, and dives into the camaraderie and the bond that those in the department have built over the years. All of that and more on an all new Kinni Cast.

Tyler Mason

Hi River Falls. Welcome back to another episode of the Kinni Cast. I'm joined today by the new fire chief, Justin Wilson, although I guess he's not that new anymore. It's been several months now. So we're going to talk about a lot of exciting things going on with the fire department and about his new role. Justin, how are you doing today?

Justin Wilson

Good, good. Thanks for having me. Super excited. 

Tyler Mason

Absolutely. Well, let's maybe kind of start about your background. So I think some people know, but maybe not everybody, that before you became the fire chief earlier this year, you actually had served as a volunteer firefighter here at River Falls for over a decade. Maybe just kind of look back at your experience as a firefighter with the department and what that was like.

Justin Wilson

Yeah, it's been great. You know, straight out of high school, I went to school and actually got my degree in firefighting and then ended up going a different path. But, you know, life happened and we got to a point where our family settled here in River Falls. And, you know, I've been with the River Falls Fire Department for the last 12 years. And it's been a great experience. It's a super solid department. You know, there's a lot of great people that have a lot of passion and desire to want to be here to support and serve our community. And so being able to come in and be part of that has been fantastic. It's been, you know, an honor to be able to serve our community and do the things that we do at the River Falls Fire Department. So for the last 12 years, I've really, really enjoyed that portion of it. And, you know, it makes it even more special to be able to come into the position and get the position as the fire chief and to be able to have that bond with the team that's there and understand the inner workings of the department and being able to come in and just keep things moving forward. It's a great department. It's a great community. And I'm super blessed and honored to be part of that. And now, you know, the chief of the River Falls Fire Department.

Tyler Mason

And I think you and maybe some others have described it as like the camaraderie or maybe the brotherhood of the department. Is that I mean, is that something that is kind of resonated with you over time?

Justin Wilson

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I look at it kind of like a family as well, right? Because there's so many different characters within the department. A lot of people with different skill sets, different work experience, all sorts of different things. And you bring everybody together and, you know, there's times where you have disagreements or you have different opinions on things, which is healthy to have those conversations. But at the end of the day, we all have the same goal, and that is to serve and protect the community of River Falls and the surrounding areas. And so it makes it that family where you can have those discussions and those conversations. And at the end of the day, you're still happy to be with each other and working towards that same goal. So, yeah, that brotherhood, that sisterhood that you hear thrown out there, it is true. There is a lot of that going on and it makes us strong and helps us to do the things that we need to do.

Tyler Mason

There's kind of a varied background of the members, young members who are maybe just out of college or the college age up to you've got a couple who have served over 50 years in the department. And so, you know, kind of wide experience. And like you said, probably some family dynamics are that that you see in any family. So I'm sure that keeps it interesting. 

Justin Wilson

It does, it does. And like I said, I mean we've got two that have been there 51.5 years now, and the experience and the stories and the knowledge that they have, it's fantastic. And we've got a couple members that are still in college, so this huge variety of different people and it makes it special because it goes across all different genres and, you know, all sorts of different things. And everybody comes together again, really pushing for that same goal, which helps really unite us and in what we're trying to do and makes it easier to be able to everybody be on the same page and understand yeah, this is our goal. And, yeah, there's different ways to get there. But at the end of the day, we figure out how to get there so that we're taking care of the community and doing the things that we need to do. 

Tyler Mason

So as we're talking about these members and I think there's over 50 now, you know, most people in town might realize that the firefighters here are paid per call volunteers. So they're not full time, like you see in maybe some bigger cities. Maybe just explain a little bit about how that volunteer structure works. 

Justin Wilson

Yeah, for sure, it's a great question because a lot of times you do talk about it. We're volunteers. And we definitely, you know, the membership volunteers a lot of their time and a lot of their talents and skills. But we do, as you said, it is paid per call. So what that typically means is that if there is a fire call, whether it's a fire or an accident, EMS response, whatever we're going out to, our members do get a small stipend for coming to that event, so they'll get one stipend, whether they're there for 15 minutes or 5 hours. So it's not like they're making money out or a whole lot of money or anything on it, you know. But we do need to make sure that we award them, reward them for being able to come in and pay for things like gas or if you ruined a shirt because we got it dirty, different things like that. You do get a little bit of that stipend to help with that. It doesn't cover a whole lot. You know, they're not in as a volunteer in this department to go out and make a whole lot of money. They're there for that service side of it and things. But, you know, nowadays it's hard to get volunteers. And I think as time has gone on, it is really hard to get people into that volunteer role or into that volunteer organization. And so a lot of departments do that now. There's still some that are true just volunteer. But the majority of them are a paid per call type of stipend that is out there. That is, I think, just the retention side of it. And to bring more people into a spot that we really need to have. And we're super fortunate here. I mean, like you said, we've got over 50. I think we're at 56 right now volunteers that are on the department and that's huge. You don't see that. There's, you know, throughout the nation within the fire service, but within a lot of volunteer organizations, volunteerism has been declining and it's been hard to get people and we have been continuing to grow and get really, really good people. So it goes a lot to what the department is and all the people that came before us and kind of set that that foundation and built those standards, has helped us to become a really solid department and a department that people want to be part of, and continue to stay like, again, we said, we've got people in there for over 50 years. 

Tyler Mason

Shout out to Gene and Gary.

Justin Wilson

Yes. Yeah. Good ol' Gary and Gene. But I go to them with a lot of stuff like, hey, what do we do about this or what have you guys done in this situation before? Because they have all of that knowledge and, you know, as the chief, it's super nice to be able to have those kind of resources to be able to dig into and ask different questions. And it's also nice to have that younger generation to say, hey, how should we look at this going forward? And what are some of the things, how do you see this type of scenario versus how somebody else sees it? So having all those different dynamics really helps me as a chief to make decisions and to make sure that we're keeping the pulse on our membership and what we need to do to keep them happy and to really help fulfill their why. We talk about the why. Why are you here? Well, what are you doing? And again, a lot of that is built around being able to serve your community and give back. And all of those whys are different and they change the longer you've been on there, as your life changes. So it's good to have all those different groups of people around.

Tyler Mason

Now, you talked about you kind of alluded to a few things that it's not just fires. There's maybe accidents, EMS things, other things like that. What does an average week look like for a firefighter here in River Falls? Maybe there's not an average week. 

Justin Wilson

Yeah, you're right. You know, if we look at all of the calls that we do typically and over the past few years, it's been about 325 to 350 calls per year. And if you look at the breakdown of those, about 10 to 15% of those are actual fire calls, I'd say. And that could be anything from a full structure fire to a garbage can that's on fire, vehicle fires, wildland fires, all of those incorporate into that 10 to 15%. So all of the other stuff that we do throughout the year is, you know, it's anything from EMS to assistance calls, you know, going to vehicle accidents. We get a lot of detector calls. Somebody calls because their smoke detector's going off or their CO detector's going off. And so we'll go and investigate those and see if there's anything or if it's just a battery needs to be changed or it's an old detector or something like that. So we do a lot of those different things throughout the weeks and months of the year. But that's just a portion of it, right? The calls are just a portion of it. We do a lot of other stuff. Our pub ed department is huge. It's fantastic. If you're a resident of River Falls and you've been here for many, many years, you've probably gone through our public education. We go out to all of the elementary schools and go through a whole program. Pauline Williams runs that and does just a fantastic job. So we're super lucky to have dedicated people like that that really have a passion for those things. So a lot of volunteers that help out with those. And, you know, it's just really about giving back to the community and doing our open house and, you know, River Falls Days and the different events that we have. So there's a lot more that we do than just fires. But I think the consistent piece that we can say on a weekly average is Monday nights. So we have our trainings every Monday night, outside of, you know, holidays and different things like that. So we're out there training, working on our skills. There's obviously things on an annual or biannual basis that we need to make sure our certifications are up to date and things like that. So our teams are putting in a ton of time and effort to make sure that we have the skill sets and we're prepared for any type of event that we might need to have. So every week can vary. There's weeks we go, we don't get a call. And then there's days where we go, we have for some reason everything comes in three. So we get one call. We know there's two more coming. You can have a day where you've got, you know, 3 or 4 calls in a day. I remember a number of years ago we had, I think it was, 3 or 4 actual structure fires within 24 hours. So it all varies. It's very, very, random throughout. And again, we're a volunteer organization, so we may not have everybody there. You may get ten people on one call. You might have 20 people on another. So it all varies. And obviously we've got great relationships with the other departments in our surrounding areas where we have mutual aid agreements. So if we don't have enough or we have a smaller staff that comes with that call, we can reach out and pull in other departments and they do the same with us if, if they need to have more resources.

Tyler Mason

As we're talking about the volunteer aspect, I mean, the members have jobs and they're working during the day. So if they get that call, I'm assuming a lot of employers are maybe understandable about that, but they might be at dinner or with family or something like that. I know you and I have talked about that. They've got to be ready to answer whenever. So is that something that kind of takes some getting used to as a firefighter? 

Justin Wilson

I think it takes a lot for you know, we talk about the firefighters and the members that are on the department, but their families too, you are sitting down having dinner and the pager goes off. And you have to get up and leave that or a sporting event or, you know, different things like that. And one of the things we do talk about is kind of family first. So, yes, we want you to come to the calls and do all of those things. But family first; family is the most important thing. If we don't have our family taken care of and have everything in order at home, it doesn't allow us to do the volunteer side of it and go on those calls. And, you know, I know as my kids grew up, it was weird the first couple of times that I had to leave. But then as time went on and the pager one would go, they're like, 'Dad, it's time to go. You got to go.' They started to get into and be part of that that group as well and understood why we're going out to do what we do. So I've got to give a lot of credit to our families that help support us and allow us to do these things and understand. And we've got another great group that's part of the fire department, our auxiliary group. And it's different siblings or wives or different people that maybe aren't on the department, but their significant others are. And they put a little group together where they help us and they bring us meals sometimes if we're on a fire for 4 or 5 hours, they'll stop and get us breakfast sandwiches because they know we gotta grab something to eat because we're heading right to work and those kind of things. So being able to have the support of that group too, it's fantastic. 

Tyler Mason

Well when this opportunity for Fire Chief came open, you applied and obviously got it. But I'm curious what your visions or ideas were for kind of how to lead this department forward into the next chapter.

Justin Wilson

Yeah, it's a great question. And I came into a very, very good situation. Again, I think you know, the standards that have been set in the foundation that that was set years and years ago has really set us up to continue to be a great department. So coming in as the chief, I didn't have a huge agenda of, we need to fix this and we need to change this and we need to do all of these things. And I think, you know, part of that helped for me being there for 12 years, understanding the situation we were in. So it's been nice because I've been able to focus on some of the things that we talk about is just continued excellence and unity, right? Continue to do the excellent things that we do, continue to push ourselves to increase what we're doing, to be better at everything that we do, so that if we do get a call, we're ready to be able to do what we need to do to support, again, our community and the surrounding communities. And we talk about unity as well. You have to have that unity within the department itself. Yes, we have disagreements. We have opinions on how to do things one way or the other. But at the end of the day, we have to unify for that common goal of serving our community. We have to be unified with the City. The City is fantastic. And they have all these resources that help us to do what we need to do. And so having that great relationship has been fantastic to be able to get all the different things that we need to do to be successful. And then obviously we need to be united with our community. We're here serving our community. So we need to be intertwined with them to understand what they need and where our services are needed and what we can do to make sure we're helping them again during emergencies. But more so really during those non-emergency signs that are here as a partnership, as an organization to help with things. We do all sorts of things. National Night Out and we had a bunch of the 9/11 stuff, you know, that that we went to different runs and things like that. So being able to do those things is a huge part of what we do, and being able to be unified in that same mission and same direction I think is important. So at the end of the day, I have no huge agenda. These are all the things that we need to do and continue to do what we're doing. Be excellent at it, be unified, and then do all the fun admin stuff so they don't have to worry about that. And obviously the coordination with the new fire hall and all of that stuff. But, yeah, it's been great to come into a really solid organization that is doing great things. 

Tyler Mason

Well, you mentioned the next point I want to get to. One of your kind of big undertakings in your first year here is going to be leading the department through this renovation of the fire station, which is going to begin shortly. You know, it's in the bid process right now. But what are some of the big things from that project that you'd like people to know just as far as what's going to be happening, the timeline, any anything that you think is important to know about the new renovations that are going to be taking place? 

Justin Wilson

Yeah, it's super, super exciting, obviously. And for those that don't know, so there was a grant that we were awarded through the USDA, for $1.4 million, which it's a great amount of money to be able to help do the things that we need to do. So this new construction is going to be great. So if you know where the old PD is or the old library is, essentially that portion of the building is going to get demolished and we're going to build a brand new apparatus bay with kind of a hose tower and training tower. And that's really going to allow us to, you know, step into some of the modernized things that we're doing. But really, a lot of it is around health and safety. So if you've ever been in our old apparatus bay, we've got our engines and everything in there. Every time we turn those on, all that diesel exhaust is pumped into the building. All of our gear is hanging on the walls around that, you know, which is getting that exhaust in there. And our nice cream colored walls are now a brownish whatever color from all that exhaust over the years. So going into this new facility, we're going to have things within our apparatus bay that have hoses that are connected to our exhaust. So that is going to get piped out of the building, which is huge for our overall health. We're going to have a spare room or a separate room that is dedicated for all of our turnout gear, which is gear that we wear as we go into fire. So when we come back from fire calls, we need to get our gear washed and stuff. But if you have 30 people on a call, you can't get it all washed at once. So it sits in that room and that room has extra ventilation in it. So it helps keep that room clean so that we're not going into all those toxic chemicals. And then we're going to get, you know, we have what we call an extractor. It's our wash machine ultimately. And you can get two sets of gear washed in there. We're going to be able to have the ability to have a second one. So now we can get four. So we get that stuff cleaned up quicker and easier, which means that our members aren't wearing that stuff around. And you know, so a lot of those things are really going to be key for us in the future, too, of just keeping, you know, our, our members healthy and safe. We'll have what we call a decon room. So after a fire, you know, whatever scene that we're on, we'll have the ability to come in and shower if we want. So today, if I go on a fire, I get done, I hang my stuff up, and I go home and bring all that with me. So now we can we can get cleaned up before we go home, which is great for us. Obviously, it's great for our families. 

Tyler Mason

Well, the families will probably appreciate it. 

Justin Wilson

Yes, exactly, exactly. So that's a huge portion of it. And then the second part of kind of the renovation is going to be our current apparatus bay is going to get cleaned up and it's going to get turned into our training room. Some offices, some storage, things like that. So, we're going to have a much larger training area, which is going to be great because we're doing things like CPR training and we're all packed in there. There's not enough room for us. So now we'll be able to spread out. It's going to be a great area that we can open up to the community for different events. I think it's going to allow us to do a better job of some of the public education stuff. So we have a lot of different elementary school groups that come in or some of the retirement community comes in and we do tours and things. So having a cleaner, bigger, nicer space is really going to help with that. And it's going to help our community and show them what we have and what we can do. So super excited. Not sure exactly on the timing of how it's all going to go, but it'll be a good year process, I think once we get started to when we get finished. But the members are super excited about it. I think it also helps us really to with retention and bringing in new firefighters, too, because when they see the facility that we have, they're going to understand that our community, our city, our surrounding areas really take pride and ownership in what we do and the facilities that we have, and that's going to give people that want to come and be on the River Falls Fire Department. But it's also going to keep the people that are here. They're going to want to stay longer and be part of this. 

Tyler Mason

So something like college football recruiting, it's all about the nice facilities they're getting in the recruiting. 

Justin Wilson

Yeah, exactly. And I think the facility will be great. It's going to be beautiful and it's going to have a ton of stuff. But I think it's going to be very much what River Falls is. It has all the great things that you need, but it's not over the top. It's not going to be all this fancy stuff that we don't need, which I appreciate because I mean, there are departments that you go to and we toured a lot as we're getting ready for this. And my whole thing is, this is crazy and it's amazing, but we don't need half of this stuff, right? So we're going to get a lot of the stuff that we need to bring us into the modern era. We're going to have the stuff that is, you know, preparing us for what the future has. As River Falls grows, has different businesses, all the things that that can come, we need to be able to have the ability to be flexible, to accommodate those types of things as well. And this facility is going to allow us to do that. So really, really excited about it. Looking forward to it. 

Tyler Mason

Which part of the renovation are you personally most excited about? 

Justin Wilson

There's a lot. But in in all honesty, it really is that health and safety side of it, even just the littlest things. So today when we back our engines in our apparatus bay, you have about three inches of space on both sides. So it's very tight. So there's little things you ding, you know, a mirror and things like that. So when we have that we don't have to worry about any of that. And we'll have more space to be able to walk around. Everything's pretty tight in there right now. So it seems weird, but those are some of the things I'm super excited about because it's going to be open, it's going to be fresh and clean, and it helps to know that all of the members that are on our department are now going to be safer. They're going to have, you know, again, the fire service, there's lots of risk with cancers and different things because of the situations that we go into. And this new building is really going to help us to mitigate some of that. Which for me as the chief is huge because all of these people that are on the department, I need to look out for, right? I need to make sure that they're being as safe as they can. They're going home to their families, those kind of things. And so having a new space, a clean space, is really going to help with that. So I'm most excited about that. It's going to be neat. 

Tyler Mason

I'm sure it'll be a little bit chaotic at times of kind of things that are transitioning and getting knocked down and all that stuff. But ultimately this is going to be a positive thing for the department. And you alluded a little bit to kind of maybe some of the some of what this will mean. But how will the renovations help set up the River Falls Fire Department for many years to come, do you think? 

Justin Wilson

Yeah, again, it's some of those things obviously we talked about is that the health and safety side of it. But some of the other things, you know, simple things like today we have all the garage doors are in the front. On Second Street, with the new building, they'll have what they call a drive thru setup. So you'll have garage doors in the front and in the back. So that will allow us to station and put our apparatus in positions where we can just respond. There's sometimes we get certain calls where we have to move an apparatus around to get to that other piece of apparatus. And so that takes some seconds, some time. And in the line of work that we do, seconds matter. So now we have apparatus ready that we just jump in and go. So I think that's going to be huge for us with this new building. We'll have what we call our hose tower, which ends up being three stories, which allows us to have on the second story, there'll be kind of a mezzanine area where we can throw ladders and we can go through windows and we can do stuff. So it'll allow us to continue training even in the winter here. So right now we do a lot of training obviously outside during the nice weather. But when it's winter, we don't go outside as much and do the kind of training that we need to do. So having this facility will allow us to continue to do that. So continue to work on and refine our skill sets throughout the entire year, which is huge. It's that muscle memory. It's that continuation of doing things. Now we don't have to wait during the winter, or if we had a great training plan and all of a sudden it's pouring rain out, a lot of times we have to switch gears. We'll still be able to do some of those things now that we have, you know, once we have that new facility, which will be awesome. 

Tyler Mason

And I'll throw in a plug for the open house that you have coming up. The timing of this episode worked out perfectly, but if anyone wants to come to the department or the fire station before all the renovations to see it one last time, it is Monday, September 29th, from 6 to 8 at the fire station there 115 Second Street. You guys have been doing that forever, so the community knows what it is. But just throwing in a plug for that, that's coming up here. 

Justin Wilson

Yeah. And we'll have poster boards out there too of what the new station is going to look like. So yeah, come on down and do all the fun activities that we have. And it's always a great time. But yeah, also come down and check out what that that new renovation is going to look like. Come find me and we can talk about it. I can explain to you what those things are.

Tyler Mason

Well last question here for you Justin, is the one that I ask everybody on the, the Kinni Cast. What impact do you hope your work will have on the people of River Falls? 

Justin Wilson

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, in the position of being the chief, I think there's two main pieces that I want to make sure I have impact on. Obviously, that's our members in the membership. And I want them to know that they have a safe place to be, that I'm there to be focused on them and their safety, being able to get them, you know, safely back home, that I'm there to help them with whatever they need, whether that's building their skill sets, whether that's, you know, prepping for some of the work that they do outside of work. I sat down with somebody the other day. They wanted to do some interview prep. So we set up some time and did some of that kind of stuff. So just so that the membership knows that I'm there to make sure that we're doing all the things that keeps them safe helps move our department forward and continues us on that path of excellence and doing all the right things and being unified within our own department and, you know, within the within the community. And same goes for the community. I want the community to know that we're there for them, whether it be in an emergency situation or just outside in all the other community events that we need that we do. So as long as at the end of the day, as my career goes through, as long as the department and the community knows that the River Falls Fire Department is there as a partner to be there for anything that they need and the community understands and knows that. We know that they're there when we need them. And if that's in their mindset and we continue to do the great things we do, that's what I'm looking forward to. Again, I don't have any big plans of making huge changes or anything like that. I love the volunteer side of what we have. Our volunteers, they're your neighbors. They're teachers. They're your parents. They're your friends. And having that group of people serving our community really is special, because it means a lot more when it's coming from groups that are dedicated and invested in our community. And I want to keep that going as long as we can. 

Tyler Mason

That's a great place to wrap it up. Well, Justin Wilson, the fire chief for the River Falls Fire Department, thanks for being on the Kinni Cast today and good luck with the renovations and everything else going on there.

Justin Wilson

Awesome. Thanks for having me. 

Tyler Mason

And we hope to see you all at the open house on Monday, September 29th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the fire station. Sparky will be there. There's games and activities, so it's always a good time. And thanks for everyone for tuning in to this episode of the Kinni Cast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Justin. If you don't already subscribe, be sure to hit subscribe whenever you get your podcasts, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or you can find it at the River Falls website, rfcity.org. And until next time, have a great day, River Falls.