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By Daniel Curtin
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Earlier this May, Medfield welcomed a new fire chief, William Carrico.
Carrico is a second generation fireman, a father, and is going to be at the helm of the Medfield Fire Department as it continues to assist the surrounding area. He is looking forward to building a strong relationship with members of the community.
“I like to think that I’m reachable, and you can come in and talk to me if you have a question,” Chief Carrico said. “There’s never any stupid questions. Sometimes people might be a little intimidated [and] they don’t want to bother us, but we like that interaction with the public, because we’re here for them.”
Chief Carrico’s father was a lieutenant with the Brockton Fire Department. Before he started working as fireman, he worked as a construction engineer for about 10 years.
He got his start as a fireman and EMT with the Duxbury Fire Department in 1999, before eventually becoming deputy chief there in 2006. Carrico also spent time as the fire chief in Halifax and Sandwich on the Cape before coming to Medfield.
The newly-minted chief addressed the changing responsibilities and duties that come when transitioning from the role of firefighter-EMT to chief.
“When you join the fire service, you join because you want to go on calls and to help people,” he said. “As soon as you hit the rank of deputy chief, my experience has been [that] every reason why you join the fire service doesn’t really exist anymore, because you go to become an administrator.”
Some of Carrico’s duties as chief include handling the revenues and expenditures of the department, working with Town Hall, and helping the fire department keep moving in the right direction.
The Medfield Fire Department is staffed with eight full-time firefighter-EMTs and 15 on-call firefighters, according to the department website.
The Medfield Fire Department responds to about 1,200 calls per year, about half of which are for emergency medical services.
Fire Chief Carrico wants the approximate 12,000 residents of Medfield to know that as chief, he plans on being open to the public and accessible.
“I’m big on transparency. This is your fire department, in that the things that we do and everything that is happening here is open to be seen,” he said.
“There are no secrets.”
