Fire Commission

Jack Horner Steps Down After 20 Years as Fire Commissioner

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Jack Horner, a member of the Fire Commission for two decades—a volunteer service record that spans several significant changes to the New Canaan Fire Department’s policies and staffing—announced Tuesday night that he’s retiring from the role. Addressing fellow Commissioners Beth Jones and Bob Fields, Fire Chief Albe Bassett, Fire Marshal Paul Payne and several firefighters, Horner noted a handful of those changes during a regular meeting of the appointed body. The Commission’s major achievements during the past 20 years have “probably transformed the fire department in meaningful ways,” Horner said during the meeting, held in a conference room at Town Hall. 

The Commission oversaw the hiring of the department’s first career assistant chief, a career chief and two successive fire marshals while restructuring the fire marshal’s office. 

“We increased the size of the daily shifts to six firefighters helping us meet OSHA and NFPA [National Fire Protection Association] requirements. It increased the safety of our citizens and firefighters and helped us reduce budget items and budget expenditures such as callback over time. We instituted a zero-based budgeting process and created a more predictable budget.

Albe Bassett

New Canaan Fire Department Introduces ‘Community Connect’ To Improve Resident Safety

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The New Canaan Fire Department has announced the launch of a new digital system called ‘Community Connect,’ which allows residents to save personal information that may be vital for first responders during an emergency. 

Community Connect is a website that allows residents to create personal accounts with information that could be needed in an emergency. Users can toggle between functions to personalize their experience to the information that is most important to them. 

“Residents can input gate codes, alarm codes, information about pets, and any special needs that would get displayed on our response tablets during an emergency,” Bassett said during the May 13 meeting of the Fire Commission, held at the firehouse on Main Street. 

First responders can use the information that residents add to the system, allowing them to better prepare for the emergency at hand. 

For example, New Canaanites can input the location of a “meeting place” where all members of a household may congregate to escape an emergency. “Another good aspect of the system is the ‘meeting place’ function which allows us to quickly make sure that everyone is accounted for and help coordinate where to deploy our first responders,” Bassett said. 

The system is also adaptable and can easily accommodate changes, he added. 

“The system does an annual reminder for residents to update their information on a regular basis,” Bassett said. “People move, which is a challenge we foresee, but annually updating the system will help us.”

Fire Commission Chair Jack Horner asked about implementing the system with Realtors in town so that it can accurately capture information from individuals who move. Basset replied that integrating the system in many areas throughout town, such as with Realtors and businesses is part of the roll-out plan. 

The system is password secured and only accessible by first responders, such that sensitive information such as codes for gates and alarms is protected, Bassett said. 

The new system is now available to New Canaan residents, officials said.

Albe Bassett

‘This Is Not a Best Practice’: Fire Commission Pushes Back on Removal of Funding for Assistant Chief

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Saying it’s a matter of public safety, members of the municipal body that oversees the New Canaan Fire Department are calling for the town to re-add funding for an assistant chief position in the agency. The Board of Selectmen following a back-and-forth with Fire Chief Albe Bassett removed a request for $121,000 in salary for the full-time assistant chief position in January, during the first major phase of the fiscal year 2025 budget process. (The job would also come with a benefits package that town Human Resources officials put at about 40% of the salary.)

After Bassett submitted a memo to the Board of Selectmen saying he could try to make do with $71,000 in overtime that would go to line officers in lieu of the full-time assistant chief, the selectmen did add a $50,000 overtime line item to the Fire Department’s budget (which still must be approved by the Board of Finance and Town Council). In the memo, obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request, Bassett listed five duties that cannot be filled by line officers “on a 24/7 basis.” They include representing the chief as needed, supervising the other line officers, HR functions such as negotiations, budget-related work and fire marshal duties. Members of the Fire Commission during a special meeting held Feb.

Albert Bassett

New Canaan Boy, 6, Receives ‘Bravery Award’ from Fire Department

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About two months ago, 5-year-old New Canaan resident John Tashjian was sitting in a car seat while his father, Luke, drove them up Route 20 in Sturbridge, Mass. 

Suddenly, a motorist swerved into the oncoming traffic lane in the 50 mph zone and hit the Tashjians head-on. While his dad suffered a broken vertebrae, young John suffered a broken collarbone and his car seat harness, while it did its job, tore the skin off his shoulders. The pair “rolled backwards across two lanes of oncoming traffic without being t-boned on John and my side of the car,” Fire Commission Chair Jack Horner said, reading from a firsthand account from Luke Tashjian at Tuesday night’s regular meeting of the appointed body. “Our car rolled about 250 feet since it was slightly downhill to where it hit a parked car at the local towing company where they impound your car after an accident and stopped,” he continued at the meeting, held in Fire Department headquarters and attended by the Tashjian family. 

Incredibly, though his dad found himself unable to move, the little boy became “very calm and authoritative and told me to call 911,” Luke Tashjian said in the firsthand account. 

It continued:
“I was lying in a puddle and told him I didn’t have my cell phone. He told me to find my cell phone and call 911.

Fire Commission

After Brooks Road Fire, Officials Urge New Canaan Homeowners To Safely Clear Out Ash Pits 

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Officials are urging New Canaan homeowners to ensure the ash pits below their fireplaces are emptied regularly and safely—as well as installed properly—following a house fire last week on Brooks Road that was ignited due to improper design. Fire officials responded on the afternoon of March 2 to a two-alarm fire at a Brooks Road home. It had been ignited in a crawl space below a hearth extension for the fireplace in the living room, according to Fire Marshal Paul Payne. “What had happened, the fireplace had an ash dump in the fire box and the ashes dumped down below the chimney into the foundation area, which was exterior to the house,” Payne told members of the Fire Commission during their regular meeting Tuesday night. “Well, the smoke and the fire was in the crawl space and when I got in there with the guys, they were just finishing up,” he said during the meeting, held via videoconference.