Deputy Fire Chief of Operations John F. Sullivan announced Tuesday that he is leaving the department after more than 30 years to lead the Brookline Fire Department.
The deputy chief, who will start as chief in Brookline March 26, has served for eight years in his current post, and been present at some of the seminal moments in department history.
As a lieutenant, he groped through the smoky darkness of the Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. on Dec. 3, 1999, searching for two of the six firefighters that perished that evening.
On Dec. 8, 2011, he held firefighter Brian Carroll in his arms as he was extricated from the three-alarm blaze on Arlington Street that killed firefighter Jon D. Davies Sr.
“I’ll always be a Worcester kid,” the city native said Tuesday in his office at fire headquarters. “This is an outstanding group of men and women, and I am certainly honored to have been a part of this (department).”