Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty named a 21-year D.C. fire department veteran to run the agency until he can find a permanent fire chief.
Battalion Chief Brian K. Lee will serve as the District of Columbia’s interim fire chief while the mayor’s search committee sifts through a number of applicants, Fenty said Friday. Fenty said the search would likely last more than a month.
“We expect this to be an extremely efficient,well-run, managed, trained organization,” Fenty said. “We know we have a lot of work to get it there, but we have some good people.”
Lee replaces Fire Chief Adrian Thompson, whom Fenty will not retain. Fenty had called for Thompson’s resignation last summer after the D.C. Inspector General released a scathing report citing “an unacceptable chain of failure” during the emergency response to the beating death of a veteran New York Times journalist.
Incoming president of the D.C. Fire Fighters Association Sgt. Dan Dugan said he was pleased with Fenty’s choice and said Lee would make a good permanent fire chief.
Lee has a wide range of experience and certifications in the D.C. department, and has served on a number of fire and rescue-related committees, he said.
Lee helped write the plan to train fire department members in both firefighting and paramedic duties, a plan that Fenty has since criticized. The incoming mayor has favored a plan to divide the fire agency into separate fire and EMS departments, but said it needs to be further studied.
Lee, a Washingtonian since early childhood, grew up in the Shaw and Anacositia neighborhoods and graduated from the University of the District of Columbia.
He is enrolled in the Johns Hopkins University Fire Executive Leadership Program.
