News Releases

At approximately 1 AM Thursday, a report of smoke in the 1700 block of E 26th Street was dispatched. Shortly after that, the call was upgraded to a confirmed structure fire. First arriving Red Shift units reported a one-story wooden structure with heavy smoke coming from the attic in the back of the residence. Firefighters began to attack the fire from the exterior while waiting on additional companies to arrive. From there, an aggressive interior attack and searches of the home were conducted. A second alarm was called due to the intense fire in the attic and crews working beneath. However, the fire was extinguished and the second alarm companies were released to return to service. The structure is abandoned and this fire is under investigation. There were no injuries. Engine 9, Ladder 1, Squad 1, Quint 1, Quint 14, Squad 13, Battalion 1 and Battalion 3 were all on scene, along with CPD and Hamilton County EMS.

A class of 27 cadets have made it through our six-month long fire academy to become the newest members of the Chattanooga Fire Department! These firefighters are the future of our agency and we are very proud of them. The class was sworn in Thursday by Judge Russell Bean at the Chattanooga Fire & Police Training Center. They have successfully completed Emergency Medical Responder training and learned about all of the different aspects of the fire service, including how to fight different types of fire. They’ve also mastered a number of other skills like hazardous materials operations, vehicle extrication, rope rescues, tactical ventilation, Rapid Intervention Techniques (saving a fellow downed or injured firefighter) and Fire Ground Survival (saving themselves from a fire if they become trapped or disoriented).

This fire academy class is a diverse group, made up of men and women who are eager to serve and protect the citizens of Chattanooga. There are a number of military veterans and reservists in this group. Lee Harper, the class president, served in the Navy and completed two deployments on a destroyer. He’s currently a hospital corpsman in the Navy Reserves. Clayton Kessler is an infantry squad leader in the Tennessee National Guard. He played Division 1 and Division 2 football and then enlisted in the military, deploying overseas. Christopher Finley is a Sergeant in an armored cavalry regiment in the Tennessee National Guard. Nikolas Banks is a combat medic in the Tennessee National Guard. Davis Derkach is a rifleman in the Marine Corps Reserves. Justin Stringfellow is an Army veteran, having served as a tanker and completing a deployment to Iraq. Jordan Zink served in the Army as an infantry squad leader and in the Tennessee National Guard as team leader for an infantry unit. We appreciate their past and current service to our great nation!

Another cadet, John Hileman, has an interesting backstory. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service for several years, fighting wildfires out West. He worked on different types of crews, including hand crews, engines and helicopters, protecting property, residents and wildlife. He decided to transition from a career in wildland firefighting to a department job and chose the CFD.

Zachary Walker is from upstate New York and specifically moved to Tennessee to join the Chattanooga Fire Department. The son of an Oneida, NY firefighter, he knew he wanted the same career as his father and when he saw that the CFD was hiring, he applied and moved across the country to begin our fire academy. For Zachary and his fiancée, it was the right decision and they’re extremely happy to be living in the Chattanooga area.

Congratulations to the entire class and welcome to the CFD! 

Chattanooga firefighters rescued a man from a burning home on 13th Avenue and then worked to locate and extinguish the fire. At 12:02 AM Tuesday, Red Shift companies responded to a residence in the 3000 block for a reported house fire with a person trapped inside. The reporting party indicated that the structure was full of smoke and there was a resident in a wheelchair who could not get out. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they rescued the man in the wheelchair. He was checked out by paramedics and he was not injured. From there, firefighting activities took place. Crews found the fire underneath the house and quickly extinguished it. Some exposed wires had caught fire. The resident’s caretaker woke up, saw smoke in the home, called 911 and flagged firefighters down when they pulled up which was helpful because the residence was hidden by two other homes. Engine 5, Ladder 5, Engine 9, Quint 14, Squad 1, Squad 20, Battalion 1 (Red Shift), EPB, CPD and the Red Cross responded. The fire was electrical in nature. A dog was also rescued from the home and did not suffer any harm in the fire. 

Chattanooga firefighters made a daring rescue on Labor Day as they arrived on the scene of a second alarm apartment fire. At 8:51 AM, units responded to 1112 Grove Street and they learned that there could be people trapped inside. Heavy smoke was showing from one of the buildings in the large apartment complex on arrival and rescue mode was started to search for occupants. Firefighters immediately spotted a woman hanging out of a second floor window yelling and screaming for help. They quickly grabbed a ground ladder, put it up to the window and got her down. As fire attack was launched, other personnel began searching the rest of the apartments. No one else was found. Fire was coming out of the windows of a ground floor apartment and smoke was billowing out of the rest of the structure. Crews attempted an interior attack with multiple hand lines, but once the fire broke though the roof, firefighters were pulled out of the building for safety reasons. Once defensive efforts knocked the fire down considerably, personnel went back inside to finish extinguishing the flames. Then hot spots were monitored. The entire apartment building (8 units) was impacted by the fire. Half of the building was destroyed and the other half sustained smoke and water damage. The Red Cross was contacted to assist residents. The woman who was rescued out of the top floor window was transported to the hospital with unknown injuries. There were no other reported injuries. Multiple Red Shift companies responded to the scene, along with CPD, HCEMS, EPB, CFD Supply, Chattanooga-Hamilton Rescue’s Rehabilitation Unit and Hamilton County 911’s Incident Dispatch Unit. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Those in command of the large-scale response commended crews for their hard work and for getting the fire out quickly. 

“Great job by everybody involved,” said Battalion Chief Ashley May. “We had good crew integrity and everyone was effective in their roles. Thank you to Chattanooga Police as well for the support and assistance they provided on the scene, especially when we were making a rescue and setting up firefighting operations. This was a big fire and we all worked together.”