Bristol Promotes Nine Fire Officials, Graduates Seven Recruits

By Justin Muszynski, The Bristol Press

June 21, 2022

City officials promoted nine firefighters and graduated seven recruits in what was called a “historic night” for Bristol on Friday.

“They’ve never had so many people retire at once,” Fire Chief Richard Hart explained.

“It was an unbelievable privilege to promote this many people,” he continued. “This was a historic night.”

The promotion-graduation ceremony was held Friday evening in the auditorium of one of the local high schools.

During the ceremony, Capt. Dave Simard was promoted to deputy chief; Capt. Todd Correll became a deputy chief; Lt. Scott McKearney became a captain; Lt. Brian D’Amato became a captain; Lt. Tom Scully was promoted to captain; Lt. Todd Cutler became a captain; Firefighter Chuck Judd was promoted to lieutenant; Firefighter Brian Wilkinson became a lieutenant; and Firefighter Adam Dellaventura was promoted to lieutenant.

“The culmination of years of studying and preparing to be promoted is a great achievement,” Hart said.

“It’s an extremely competitive process,” the chief continued, adding that promotions in the testing process are sometimes decided by a margin as small as hundredths of a point.

Additionally on Friday evening, the seven recruits who received training by Bristol instructors for 12 weeks graduated the in-house academy and are officially city firefighters. This was the first time the city conducted its own training of firefighters, rather than have them trained at the state’s fire academy in Windsor Locks.

“The training was above and beyond my greatest expectations,” said Hart, who added that the instructors involved – all of whom are city fire officials – did an “outstanding job.”

Hart said the recruits received training that was “second to none,” and that they are able to serve as firefighters four weeks sooner than if they had gone to the state academy. One of the recruits had his first shift on Monday.

“They were able to get more hands-on training than they would have at the fire academy at the state,” Hart said, noting that the class size was much smaller than it normally would have been with recruits from various parts of Connecticut.

“They trained on Bristol equipment and they learned how we operate tactically,” the chief said of the seven recruits, adding that they state fire academy “can’t tailor (the training) to one department or another.”

Justin Muszynski can be reached at 860-973-1809 or jmuszynski@bristolpress.com.