Joseph Tenney, Fire Chief

It is with distinct honor and deep humility that I have accepted the appointment to the Fire Chief for the City of Davis.  I arrived in Davis as a new employee for the UC Davis Fire Department in March of 1989. After serving the University for over 10 years, I applied for and was hired as a Firefighter by Chief Rose Conroy for the City of Davis in September of 1999. September 17, 2019 will mark 30 years of service in the Davis community.  When appointed to the Fire Chief position by City Manager, Mike Webb, the most gratifying part of this experience has been the incredible outpouring of support from the fire department, city employees and from the Davis community. I am excited to continue my fire service career as the Davis Fire Chief.

The Davis Fire Department personnel have maintained a high level of customer service for many years in this affluent community.  As the new Fire Chief, we will maintain the professional service and look for additional ways to improve service.  Fire Department staff and I are reviewing every aspect of the department and identifying many programs that will be improved.   

Technology is one of the areas that we are focused on.  When the new technology is in place, we will have the ability to enhance the availability of data so that we can identify what we are doing well and where we specifically need to improve.  Technology will also improve the department in our emergency response and daily productivity.  Incident information can be available in real time and daily information gathered in the field can be automatically downloaded into our Fire Records Management system. What this means is no more stacks of paper to be pushed back and forth into the filing cabinets. 

There are many other areas that are under review such as staffing, resource deployment, training, emergency preparedness and communications.  My primary goal as the new Fire Chief is to move the department forward as a cohesive team maintaining the highest professional service to the Davis community. I am extremely grateful and excited for this opportunity to continue to serve the City of Davis and members of the Fire Department.