The city of Garden Grove has named David Barlag, a 26-year veteran of the Garden Grove Fire Department, as its new chief.
He replaces retiring fire chief David Bertka who, after 32 years, four as chief, will call it a career.
Barlag said he has worked his way up through the ranks of the Fire department and along the way from firefighter to fire chief has received his AA, bachelors and masters degrees from California State University, Long Beach.
He shared how he worked his way up the ladder.
The city of Garden Grove has named David Barlag, a 26-year veteran of the Garden Grove Fire Department, as its new chief.
He replaces retiring fire chief David Bertka who, after 32 years, four as chief, will call it a career.
Barlag said he has worked his way up through the ranks of the Fire department and along the way from firefighter to fire chief has received his AA, bachelors and masters degrees from California State University, Long Beach.
He shared how he worked his way up the ladder.
Barlag became a firefighter and firefighter paramedic with the Buena Park Fire Department in 1982.
In 1986 he came to Garden Grove and in 1994 was promoted to fire captain.
Inside the office in 1997, he did training and was the Emergency Services Coordinator until he was promoted to Battalion Chief in 1999.
In 2003 Barlag was promoted to operations division chief and in 2006 was transferred to the fire marshal’s job, which is also a division chief job.
Promoted in 2008, he became deputy chief in charge of operations and now in 2012 he has been promoted to fire chief.
We talked with the new chief in his office recently:
Question: What services does the Garden Grove Fire Department provide and what changes will you make to make the department better?
Answer: When someone reaches for the phone and calls 911 – anything a person calls for – from hazardous material, fire, a traffic accident, a heart attack, confined space or someone trapped in a pipe below ground, which we call urban search and rescue below ground or at a high angle where we use ropes, knots and pulleys, we answer all of those calls.
On changes – one of the needs we have is that we have a number of openings and we are down 10 members so we will be hiring quite a few new people and because of the hiring, training will be the focus to get the new trainees up to speed.
Q: How will you go about making those changes to make the department better?
A: It will be training moving forward – and we will be looking around trying to see what works in other places that we are not doing.
Q: What do you see as the needs of the community of Garden Grove and how will you address those issues?
A: Eighty percent of our calls are for some sort of medical need – and a lot of our department has been set up in a dual role as firefighter and paramedic and those people do both jobs.
Fortunately, we don’t have a lot of fires but every day we roll on a lot of paramedic calls.
We operate out of seven fire stations and we run 11,000 calls a year so we stay busy out there serving the community.
Q: How did you get into firefighting to begin with?
A: When I was in high school, I wanted to be an architect and took a lot of drafting classes.
My teacher, Mr. Decker, got me an internship where I sat at a desk drawing all summer long and I said to myself, “Is this what you really want to do for the rest of your life?” I decided to re-evaluate what I wanted to do.
My father worked as a firefighter in the city of Vernon and I thought, “You know, Dad always enjoys going to work and has fun and exciting stories to tell,” and that’s when I took an EMT class; that was the first basic class.
Then, I attended the Fire Academy and took the entry-level tests around California and got hired in Buena Park.
Barlag said today’s competition to be a firefighter is a lot more difficult because there are more people competing for the jobs – and there is a large pool of candidates available because it’s a highly desirable job.
“My real mission on the Fire Department: The public sees the firefighters out there on big fires but character is how we treat someone when no one is watching and I want that kind of character development when the public is not watching.
“How we treat people when we pick up people at night who have fallen in their homes or in the street – when no one is watching us – how did we treat that person?”
Garden Grove City Manager Matt Fertal made Barlag’s appointment and praised him as, "a consistent leader, deeply committed to his service career."
Barlag said he competed two times, in 2003 and 2008, for the position of chief.
”In the back of my mind, I knew my time would come," he said.
Bertka said Barlag is more prepared than anyone else to take on the job as chief because he understands and lives for the department and the community. “The transition will be very easy."
For non-emergency fire department information, call 714-742-5600.
Loreen Berlin can be reached at loreenberlin@verizon.net
