Veteran NH Firefighter Tapped as Interim Chief
By Alex LaCasse
Source Portsmouth Herald, N.H.
EXETER, NH—Assistant Fire Chief Eric Wilking was appointed interim chief effective Friday following the retirement of Chief Brian Comeau.
Wilking has been an assistant chief in Exeter for 15 years. He has been leading the town's emergency response to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic coordinating the resupply of personal protective equipment for EMTs and staying abreast on the latest state developments.
"Exeter is a great town to work for and I look forward to working alongside the people in this department, the Select Board and all other town department heads," Wilking said. "The phrase that gets thrown around now is, 'they don't teach you this stuff in fire school,' when something like a pandemic starts."
Wilking said he was proud of how the community responded to home-isolation guidelines to reduce transmission of COVID-19, so far, as evidenced by the relatively low number of cases that have been confirmed in town.
"You do your best to stay educated, the pandemic is certainly all-consuming in the news," Wilking said. "But the operations of the Fire Department can't suffer, so it becomes a delicate balancing act for me."
Wilking has been in the fire service for nearly 38 years, beginning as a volunteer in Maine before moving to New Hampshire and serving the town of Belmont for 17 years. Wilking then worked as a captain at the state Fire Academy in Concord for seven years before being hired in Exeter as an assistant chief and training officer. He has been serving as the assistant chief of operations since 2015.
The retiring Comeau said Thursday he "couldn't be happier" Wilking was next in line to lead Exeter fire.
"Eric has been working for that for a long time, he couldn't be a better choice," Comeau said. "It's been part of a successor plan we've started years ago. We're trying to really build on the future of the fire service."
Wilking said he appreciated Comeau giving him the opportunity to lead the day-to-day functions of the Fire Department when he officially tendered his retirement to town administration two months ago.
"From the day Brian announced his retirement he allowed me to take over day-to-day management of the department with his supervision; it was part of his leadership style to have a succession plan in place," Wilking said. "Brian created a great Fire Department here with the brightest and most capable firefighters, paramedics and advanced EMTs."
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