FULLERTON : Fire Chief Makes a Splash in Debut

It’s a custom that everyone who gets a promotion in the Fire Department tries to dodge--literally. But the city’s new fire chief, who had never heard of the practice, was caught by surprise Monday morning.

While posing for photographs on his first day on the job, Chief Stephen P. Magliocco was drenched by firefighters who dumped buckets of water on his head from the second floor of the department’s headquarters.

Then, as a reporter interviewed him, Magliocco’s crew squirted him with a garden hose.

“It’s looking like it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Magliocco, 46, said wryly as he headed off in his wet clothing to receive a physical examination.

Fire Marshal John Clark, who has been doused three times while rising through the ranks, explained the custom: “When someone is hired or promoted, they are wet down. Everybody knows about it but a fire chief from another city.”

Magliocco was hired from Vallejo, a city northeast of San Francisco, to succeed Marc Martin, who became Santa Ana’s fire chief three months ago.

“There’s no way to get around it,” Clark said. “You can run, but you can’t hide. It’s our ‘welcome aboard.’ ”

After a change of clothes at lunchtime, Magliocco joked about his reception. “It was kind of nice,” he said.