Kirk Summers began his fire service career on a Los Angeles County Fire Department handcrew in 1975. He worked for the Orange County Fire Authority as a firefighter, engineer, captain and battalion chief. He worked at Chino Valley Fire District as operations chief and fire chief. Special assignments have included program manager for FEMA CATF-5 (Orange County Fire Authority), HazMat Coordinator, CAL FIRE Incident Command Team 8, and USFS Southern California Incident Management Team 1. He is currently working as the interim fire chief for the City of San Gabriel Fire Department.