Dave Walton – Deputy Chief Fire Officer
Deputy Chief Fire Officer – West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service
Dave has worked in the Fire & Rescue Service since 1985. His father was a Firefighter too and his birth certificate records his first home as Birmingham Central Fire Station.
He served 27 years in the West Midlands Fire Service, and since 2013 has worked for West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service. He is currently the Deputy Chief Fire Officer with responsibility for Service Delivery across West Yorkshire. This includes all of the Fire Stations, our 999 Fire Control and our Fire Prevention and Fire Protection teams.
In common with the vast majority of long serving Fire Service employees, Dave joined the service as a Firefighter. He spent a number of years working on a fire engine in Birmingham and the surrounding areas.
Once he decided to pursue a path of promotion he undertook some of the numerous roles available in the Fire & Rescue Service and has led training teams, development teams, response teams and managed cities and districts.
He is an advocate of promoting the Fire & Rescue Service as a career of choice for as wide a range of people as possible. Our society is made up of people from a range of backgrounds with varied and valuable life experiences. Only a small part of being a Firefighter is taken up putting out fires and rescuing people, the vast majority of time is spent training, and working to make the community safer. The Fire & Rescue Service also has a huge support team who make sure that we can do what we do.
Dave is a co-chair of ‘West Yorkshire Prepared’ – this is the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) for the county. The LRF brings together emergency responders, local authorities, utility providers, voluntary sector and other key agencies to plan for, and respond to, major incidents which may affect us all. Of late this has involved the response to the pandemic and major flooding and fire events that have occurred within the county.
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Sectors worked in and routes taken: |
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Fire Service |
That’s it – that’s me! From an 18 year old to where I am now. |
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