In this episode, I chat with Chief Troy Haase from the Portage, Wisconsin Fire Department.

Chief Haase was selected to be the Portage Fire Chief in the fall of 2000.  He has over 30 years of experience in the fire service.  For the majority of those years, he served as a career firefighter paramedic on the Fond du Lac Fire and Rescue Department, where he was also promoted to division chief.

The City of Portage, Wisconsin, located approximately 35 miles north of Madison, is the seat of Columbia County.  The Portage Fire Department provides fire service for a population of just over 10,000 in the city and also a number of rural townships.  

On Wednesday, May 24, 2023, the Portage Fire Department received a call for fire reported at the Columbia County Recycling and Waste Processing Facility where several storage buildings were engulfed in flames when they arrived.  The incident became very large, with assistance provided from agencies all over the south central area of the state.  The fire attack occurred over a 26-hour period.

Listen as I talk with Chief Haase to learn more about the Portage Fire Department, his experience, and what it was like to be the incident commander of such a large incident.

Don’t forget to check out my website, the forwardfirefighter.com.  Feel free to contact me and let me know if there are any topics you would like me to cover for an upcoming episode.