March 9, 2001

Fire Chief takes job in Florida

       White River Township Fire Chief Mike Dutton is leaving the community for a job in Florida.  The White River Township Fire Protection District Board appointed Operations Chief Mike Tibbetts to serve as interim chief while the board searches for Dutton’s replacement.  Tibbetts is a retired Indianapolis Fire Department firefighter who has served on the White River Township department for four years.  Dutton, who was hired as the township’s fire chief in 1996, will be the new deputy fire chief of the Fort Walton Beach Fire Department. He is taking the job to be closer to his family.  His last day in White River Township will be today.  Fort Walton Beach is a tourist city with a population of about 22,000. It is in the Florida panhandle.  A Maryland native, Dutton served the Washington, D.C., Fire Department from 1970 to 1990. He then moved to Lake Worth, Fla., where he was the city fire chief from 1990 to 1995 before coming to Indiana.  His parents and parents-in-law live in Florida. “My parents are getting up in age, and I’d like to be closer to them,” Dutton said. “It’s a long way for visits.”  In his five years as chief of the White River Township Fire Department, Dutton has helped institute several changes.  “We’ve definitely come a long way in five years,” he said. “Five years ago we were almost all volunteer, there was no advanced life support, no third station, no aerial truck. And there were only seven on duty instead of nine.” But Dutton said the department still has a ways to go to keep up with the demands of the county’s fastest-growing township.  Most recently, he has been pushing for state legislators to allow the fire district to raise taxes beyond the maximum levy to help fund more personnel.  Dutton’s goal was to establish fire-based emergency medical services so that firefighters trained as paramedics would not have to rely on a private company to transport patients to the hospital.  Dutton said he doesn’t think his departure will stall the effort.  He said that establishing a public ambulance service is part of the fire district’s 10-year plan set out by department officials a few years ago.  “It’s not going away,” he “There was no advanced life port personnel when I got up here and now we have paramedics on every pumper.  In order to get where we need to be, we just need to get sufficient personnel to get in the transport business.”  But Dutton warned his successor that changes don’t take place overnight in the township.  “You just have to take slowly and be patient,” he said.  “Things will happen. You can’t be discouraged.”  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

 

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