CLERMONT, FL—In Carle Bishop’s early days of firefighting, a siren would blast from the city’s water tower to alert volunteer firefighters of a blaze.
Now a booming Orlando bedroom community of 40,000, Clermont was a tenth that size and surrounded by citrus in the 1970s, when Bishop began serving as a volunteer firefighter. The siren could be heard by everyone.
“When I was in high school, all my classmates said ‘I can’t wait to get out of this one-horse town’ … because there was nothing here. Orange groves, that’s it," he said. "There was nothing to do and there was no place for them to work.”
Bishop, however, stayed, found his niche in firefighting and went on to become the city’s longtime fire chief. Now, after 49 years of service — first with the city’s volunteer force and, for the past 20 years, with its full-time fire department — he’s calling it a career on Oct. 18.
City leaders credit the 67-year-old Bishop, who has served as chief for 29 years, for transforming the volunteer department into a career agency with about 90 employees.
In 2001, two years after bringing on paid firefighters, Clermont was one of the first fire departments in Lake County to provide advanced life support medical services.
Also under Bishop, Clermont’s fire-protection rating from the Insurance Services Office has been lowered three times based on measurements such as response time, staffing and equipment. Residents benefit from lower ratings because insurance companies often consider them in calculating premiums.
Officials said Bishop’s crowning achievement was earning international accreditation, a stamp of approval from the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, attesting to the department’s professionalism. The city was awarded that distinction last year following an in-depth review of a number of areas, including planning, training, goals and objectives.
“It was a phenomenal thing for the city the size of Clermont,” Mayor Gail Ash said. “They worked for months and months and months in qualifying for that accreditation.”
Veteran City Council member Keith Mullins said he has admired Bishop since he first met him in 1988 after moving from Tallahassee.
“What always impressed me from day one is his integrity,” Mullins said. “You just trusted the man explicitly. You never questioned his values and honesty.”
Jonathan Fagan, a lieutenant paramedic who has been with the department for 10 years, called Bishop a “fireman’s chief.”
“I would say he’s all-around fair,” said Fagan, 32. “He’s always considering the guys” in how he runs the department.
Bishop said one fire stands out: a 1994 conflagration at the former Dole Citrus Packing Plant, which was built with huge pine timbers. The heat reached nearly 1,000 degrees and was so intense it took the paint off a firetruck and melted a protective face shield stored in the truck cabinet.
“Once it got lit up there was no stopping it," he said.
When he started all those years ago while also working at the family business, Bishops Paint and Decorating in downtown Clermont, firetrucks had manual transmissions and no roofs or AC — let alone computers or GPS.
Nowadays, Bishop said, “The fire service is so much more technical. ... When someone comes now they go through hundreds of hours of training before becoming a firefighter.”
He followed in the footsteps of his father, Clarence Bishop, who was Clermont’s assistant fire chief in the 1960s. But his roots to Clermont go deeper — his two great-grandfathers came to Clermont in 1884.
He and his wife of 45 years, Wendy, have four children and 17 grandchildren (and one on the way), who represent the Bishop family’s sixth generation in Clermont. In retirement Bishop plans to travel in his new motor home and work on a vacation home he’s building in Tennessee.
A Clermont history buff, he loves to think about the old days when “you had to go to Orlando to go to a restaurant or buy a pair of shoes ....or to see a movie."
But he doesn’t join others who complain about the congestion created by new residents drawn to the area’s rolling hills and proximity to Orlando.
He sees the bright side of growth and understands why people want to live in Clermont.
“I’m really not that nostalgic," he said. “I realize that progress is progress.”
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