Michael Carlson has been a firefighter for nearly three decades but some of his most vivid memories involving battling not fire but ice.

But then ice is hard to avoid when you work in Fairbanks, Alaska, and your job involves spraying copious amounts of water.

Carlson, who started work as Baker City’s fire chief April 1, was a firefighter at Fort Wainwright, a U.S. Army base in Fairbanks, during his 22-year Army career.

He recalls having to use a propane torch to melt the ice that formed around a fire truck while Carlson and others were hosing down flames, leaving the rig stuck like an Arctic explorer’s ship hemmed in by a shifting ice pack.

Nor was that the only lesson Carlson learned during his stint in the frigid far north.

“You learn at 50 below that you don’t completely turn your nozzle off,” he said with a smile during an interview in his office at the Baker City Fire Department on Tuesday morning, May 27.

If you shut off the water flow even for a few seconds at that temperature, the nozzle clogs with ice.

Carlson said the usual post-fire task of rolling up hoses is as futile during a Fairbanks winter as trying to fold metal fence posts.

Firefighters lay the frozen hoses on a flatbed trailer, haul them back to the station and wait until they’re thawed.

Carlson, 53, won’t have to deal with temperatures quite so polar in Baker City.

But he’s eager to take on a new challenge.

Carlson, who moved to Baker City from Mosier, near The Dalles, where he was hired as fire chief in April 2024, said he learned while he was an applicant for the job about the Baker City Fire Department’s turmoil during 2022 and 2023.

In the spring of 2022 the Baker City Council — none of those councilors is still in office — agreed, at the recommendation of then-City Manager Jonathan Cannon, to end the fire department’s ambulance operation, which accounted for about 80% of the department’s service calls.

Over the next year, most of the department’s full-time firefighters left. Some cited the end of ambulance service as the main reason.

“They’ve had some rough times,” Carlson said of the department.

Today, though, the agency is at full staff, with nine full-time firefighters, he said.

Carlson said he wants to add at least two part-time employees.

He said one of his chief goals is to ensure Baker City firefighters, many of whom are early in their careers, are well-trained and well-supported.

“If you take care of your firefighters, they’ll take care of you,” Carlson said. “I want to treat them so good they don’t want to leave.”

He’s excited that the department will soon be certified by the state to respond to ambulance calls when Pioneer Ambulance, the private company that Baker County commissioners hired in 2022 to replace the city department, is busy with other calls.

Carlson said he had lunch recently with Tim Novotny, Pioneer’s regional manager, and has also gone out on ambulance calls with Pioneer crews.

“We have a good working relationship,” he said.

The lasting legacy of a TV show

Carlson was born in Minneapolis and lived there until he was 12, when his parents moved the family to Denver.

Nobody in his family had worked as a firefighter.

But then Carlson discovered “Emergency!”

The TV series, which aired from 1972 to 1977, was set at a fire station in Los Angeles and followed the dramatic exploits of firefighter-paramedics.

“Emergency!” was Carlson’s favorite show.

And the most influential.

He carried a firefighter lunch box to school.

He dressed up as a firefighter for Halloween.

He enlisted in the Army in 1992 and worked in human resources.

Then, just before he was scheduled to re-enlist, Carlson talked with an officer about becoming a firefighter.

It’s a rare opportunity.

Carlson said there are fewer than 300 firefighters in the Army.

But in 1996 he fulfilled his childhood dream.

Carlson was stationed at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, for firefighter training. He was certified as a firefighter in December 1996 and was sent to Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Washington, to start his firefighting career.

After stints at Fort Lewis and Fort Wainwright, Carlson returned to Fort Goodfellow, where he worked as an instructor for about 10 years before retiring from the Army in 2014.

Carlson said his training in the Army was comprehensive, including rescues, dealing with hazardous materials, fighting fires in buildings and aircraft, and handling medical emergencies.

He said Army firefighters typically have mutual aid agreements with local civilian fire departments, so he was accustomed to working with those agencies.

Carlson said he was committed to remaining a firefighter after retiring from the military.

In 2014 he was hired as a firefighter in La Marque, Texas, a city about midway between Houston and Galveston.

Carlson said his wife, Sabryna, wanted to settle closer to her parents’ home in Beaumont, Texas.

He worked for the La Marque Fire Department for almost a decade, rising to interim chief.

When he learned about an opening for fire chief in Mosier, he was intrigued.

“Every since I was little, I wanted to be a fire chief,” he said.

Carlson said the Mosier fire department handled a lot of wildland fires.

He was pleased, then, to find out that Baker City, although it mainly deals with structure fires within the city limits, has in its fleet a truck set up for wildland fires.

Carlson said one of his chief goals is to strengthen the city’s relationship with rural fire districts.

“We all need to work together,” he said. “We all have the same common goal.”

Carlson said he also intends to spend considerable time meeting with local residents and talking with them about the fire department.

“I think the taxpayers want to see what their money goes for,” he said.

Carlson is also eager to settle in to Baker City. He and his wife recently bought a home.

“This is a really good place to live,” he said. “The people I’ve met have been really supportive and nice.”

Carlson’s annual salary is $97,056.

Carlson also plans to indulge in his favorite hobby — cooking.

Specifically, he hopes to bring a taste of Texas to Baker City.

Carlson said he would like to barbecue brisket for the city’s firefighters.

There might even be a contest coming.

“I’m thinking about an in-house chili cookoff,” Carlson said with a smile.