FREEPORT

Firefighting isn’t just a job. It’s a lifestyle, and for Freeport’s new Fire Chief Charlie Jordan, it’s all-consuming.

As a young child growing up in Camden, he was fascinated with the fire service and would watch the fire trucks drive by and even watch them work, if his mother could find out where they were going.

When Jordan was 24, however, firefighting wasn’t a career he was considering. He was running the Samoset Golf Club. He attended University of Maine for economics and always planned to go into the family business of real estate.

Jordan was convinced by friends of his in the Rockland Fire Department to join, although it took a couple of years. He stayed with the Rockland

Fire Department for 25 years, serving as a call firefighter, except for the last 10 years when he served as fire chief. He retired, moved back to Camden with his wife, Robin. He and his wife even took up ballroom dancing.

However, he soon joined the local fire department as a call firefighter.

Now he takes over for long- time Freeport Fire Chief Darrel Fournier, who retired in May.

Jordan said he was drawn by the community service aspect of firefighting, as well as the teamwork required. He got hooked during the hands-on practice drills. Then at the first major fire he responded to in Rockland, a wood-frame tire warehouse was burning. There was a little cottage about 25 feet away and the family who lived there evacuated, expecting it would be the last time they’d leave their home.

Firefighters continually doused the cottage with water as the fire raged close by, Jordan said.

When he saw the family return in the morning to find their home still there, he recalled, “I said this was something I really wanted to do, and it was off to the races after that.”

“My wife has been so understanding of this whole thing,” he said. “She thought she was marrying a real estate guy,” Jordan said, who also works as an appraiser. “All of a sudden she’s listening to pagers.”

After retiring as chief from Rockland Fire Department in early 2014, “I really didn’t think that fire chief was on my radar screen ever again, and I didn’t have my resume out,” Jordan said.

But then his eyes happened to catch the advertisement for the Freeport fire chief position in a newspaper, and he thought about how similar Freeport is to Rockland. He did research, talked to people and at age 55, weighed whether or not at this station in life he and his wife wanted to do this.

“We want to be in Freeport,” he said.

He and Robin will also be a little closer to their 27-year-old daughter Mackenzie and 24-year-old son Jeffrey, who are both in the Portland area. Their children have also been supportive of the decision.

The question he’s fielded most is whether he’ll change the yellow-orange color of the fire trucks. His answer is that departments have traditions and this is Freeport’s. It isn’t something he thinks the chief should decree.

“Long-term decisions, strategic planning, are always better when you have stakeholders involved,” he said.

He acknowledged the recruitment and retention issue facing fire departments. Personnel are becoming older as people stay on longer because younger people aren’t joining. The problem is compounded in Maine, the oldest state in the country, where young people are working multiple jobs or leaving for job opportunities.

If the trend isn’t reversed, Jordan said, “you will either have limited or no fire protection, or you’ll end up having to pay significantly to maintain paid coverage, so it’s certainly something that we will be looking at.”

While he doesn’t have the answer, “I won’t give up,” he said. “Having the fire house be a place people enjoy coming to is one thing I think we can ensure to help stem that tide.”

“I feel very fortunate to be here,” Jordan said. “Everyone has been great in welcoming me: the department members, the citizens in town, the municipal staff, the manager. I couldn’t ask for anything better and I’m very pleased with the department itself, with the people who are here and their skills.”

He added, “I feel as if I lucked into it.”