The fire chiefs — Hilbrecht's quarter-century to Lahey

1882–2026 · THE PAID DEPARTMENT'S COMMANDERS

Hilbrecht: The paid department's first working chief set its pattern of longevity. When the council elected a chief for the reorganized department in May 1882, William Hilbrecht won with fourteen votes to Diehl's three, filed his $2,000 bond, and took command with Frank Vogel and J. G. Strodel as his vouchers. He was still chief a quarter-century later, directing the department's work at the Aveline House fire of May 1908, the city's worst loss of life by fire — the volunteer era's last chiefs and the paid era's first were, in Fort Wayne, substantially the same men, and the Fire & Public Safety section tells the institutional story.

Davie, Kelly, Biggs, Lahey: The documented modern line runs: Tim Davie, chief from 2000 through 2007 (below); Pete Kelly, who retired on 29 June 2012; Amy Biggs, sworn in days later — the first woman to lead the department in its 173-year history, sworn by City Clerk Sandy Kennedy, her first hours in the office spent on the emergency calls of the great storm of 29 June 2012. Biggs had joined the department as a firefighter in 1995, made captain of the Fire Prevention Bureau in 1999 and of Operations in 2001, and assistant chief in 2008. She resigned the chief's office effective 1 June 2014, after less than two years, and remained with the department as a captain. Eric Lahey, who had been Kelly's deputy chief, was appointed in 2014 and still holds the office in the most recent record reached — presiding over a department of some 360 firefighters against an authorized strength of 370, and facing, in 2025, a vote of no confidence from the firefighters' union, IAFF Local 124, and a published letter from his predecessor Biggs arguing that the vote reflected systemic failures of leadership. The dispute is printed as the press record gives it: the union's vote, the former chief's letter, and the chief's and mayor's answers all stand in the 2025 coverage, and the chief remained in office.

Sources:

1. Weber, History of the Fort Wayne Fire Department extracts — Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, May 1882 (the Hilbrecht election and bond); Griswold, Pictorial History (1917) — Hilbrecht at the Aveline fire, May 1908; via the Fire & Public Safety section.
2. City of Fort Wayne release via Around Fort Wayne, 13 June 2012 — Biggs's appointment, career and the 173-year first; Journal Gazette via FireRescue1, July 2012 — the swearing-in and the storm; News-Sentinel via Firehouse, 20 May 2014 — the resignation.
3. The Local FW, 1 July 2025, and Journal Gazette letter of Amy Biggs, June 2025 — the staffing figures, the no-confidence vote and the answers. ASSP Anthony Wayne Chapter biography — Davie's tenure, 2000–2007.