FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Fire Chief to Hang Up Boots Today

Fire Chief Richard E. Jorgensen has seen many people injured in fires and car accidents during his 27 years in the fire service.

“You live with that your whole career,” Jorgensen said.

But the one fire he will always remember involved a personal tragedy.

As a fire captain in Buena Park in 1976, a call came that his brother’s house was on fire.

When firefighters arrived, the house was engulfed in flames, and Jorgensen’s 18-year-old nephew was asleep in the bedroom.

Jorgensen pulled his nephew out of the house, but the teen later died from smoke inhalation.

“It was something I couldn’t talk about for several years,” he said. “I felt we had got there as quick as we could, and I knew the Fire Department had done everything possible. . . . It was just too late.”

While that may have been the toughest point in his career, Jorgensen said he has no regrets about choosing a job that helps save lives.

But now, Jorgensen, 56, said it’s time to say goodby to firefighting.

Jorgensen will retire today as the city’s fire chief, a post he has held since 1981.

“I felt fortunate to be part of the fire service,” he said. “There are rewards in being able to provide that help to citizens during emergencies.”

Born and raised in Minnesota, Jorgensen moved with his family to Compton in 1951, later settling in Bellflower. He moved to Buena Park a year after he landed his first job with the city’s Fire Department in 1966, and has lived there ever since with Jan, his wife of 32 years.

Jorgensen, a father of four and grandfather of three, climbed the ranks in Buena Park Fire Department, and was promoted to battalion chief in 1979.

He vied for the top job of fire chief in Fountain Valley because he wanted to lead a Fire Department the way he believed it should be done.

“I found it frustrating to work with administrators who didn’t do things the way I thought they should be done . . . treating people as people,” said Jorgensen, who has overseen a department of 45 employees, including 36 firefighters.

“In the fire service, everybody’s job is important and they should be given the opportunity to do the best job they can, and I didn’t see that being done too well.”

For 12 years in Fountain Valley, Jorgensen has been instrumental in getting the city’s two fire stations remodeled, buying new equipment and building teamwork and new programs.

Kathy Williams, emergency preparedness coordinator, said Jorgensen encouraged the development of the city’s emergency preparedness and public education program.

“He’s been a supporter, and that’s important,” she said.

Jorgensen said he and his wife plan to travel, and eventually build a house on their property in Pearblossom, near Palmdale, and move there in about five years.