Michael Rozario may have long since traded in his bicycle for a fire engine, but his passion for fighting fires stills burns as brightly as ever.
Council officially appointed Rozario as the new fire chief during its regular meeting on May 21, ahead of the joint fire chief agreement between Bradford and Innisfil coming to an end on May 27.
Now, the prior joint chief Brent Thomas will be able to focus on Innsifil Fire and Rescue Services, while Rozario oversees Bradford West Gwillimbury Fire and Emergency Services.
“I love it,” the new chief said when asked how things were going so far. “The people here have been very welcoming.”
On top of that friendly atmosphere, Rozario is already fairly well acquainted with the town, and prior to becoming deputy chief of Georgina Fire and Rescue Services in 2014, he had been the deputy chief in Bradford since 2011.
“It was a good opportunity to come back to a growing community, and a place that I was kind of familiar with. They’ve got some really good staff in place,” he said.
With more than two decades of experience as a firefighter, Rozario has also worked in Brockton, Southwold, Richmond Hill and Stouffville, the latter of which was where he got his start and also where he grew up near the old fire station, which included a siren to alert volunteers when they were needed.
By the time he was about 10 years old, Rozario and his friends were also racing to the station on their bicycles at the sound of the siren, where he recalled a chalk board on which the location of the fire calls were written.
“If it was close in town we’d ride our bikes like crazy to the scene and watch what was going on,” he said. “That was pretty much when I first knew I wanted to be a firefighter.”
From childhood dream to the new chief, he’s now focused on the safety of everyone in town.
Noting the importance of the new fire hall opened in 2022, and the 20 new recruits hired last year, Rozario wants to ensure the growth of the service continues to keep pace with the growth of the town, and is also looking forward to guiding the creation of the town’s second fire station near the Bond Head water tower.
The new chief has also been familiarizing himself with the details of the shelved plan to merge Bradford’s and Innisfil’s fire services, after he experienced a comparable outcome between Georgina and East Gwillimbury.
“We did a very similar study and determined that it’s not quite the right time for that, but maybe in the future,” he said.