On the wall behind his desk rests Michael Willets’ father’s old red helmet, the punched 1970s tape — the last replacement of the labels that had melted off the helmet before — still bearing the Willets name.
After all, firefighting has always been a family affair for Willets, whose father, L.G. Willets, started at the Burlington Fire Department in 1957. When his brother, Danny Willets, became a firefighter in 1991, the pair became Burlington’s first father-son employees at the department. When Willets was hired as deputy chief and fire marshal in 2001, he and his brother became the fire department’s first siblings to work together.