Last Wednesday was Verde Valey Fire Chief Nazih Hazime’s last day at Verde Valley Fire District Station 31 after seven years as the leader of the 39-member department. Hazime was born in Highland Park, Michigan and “decided he wanted to be a firefighter early on.” He got a degree in fire science and was hired in Dearborn, Michigan at the fire service where he worked for 25 years – the last five years as fire chief of the 125-member department. Hazime retired from Dearborn and was then hired as the chief in Sedona in 2011, where he worked for two years. He was then offered the job as the chief of the Verde Valley Fire District which he has held for the past seven years. Being a fire chief was never his plan, he said in an interview on Tuesday. “My goal was to become a captain or battalion chief and I was comfortable with that.”