Wednesday marked the end of an era for the city of Chelan and one of its top emergency management officials.
After ten years of service to the resort town of 4,200 residents, Chelan County Fire District No. 7 Chief Tim Lemon is retiring.
“Of the forty years (of his career) this is probably the ten years I enjoyed the most,” Lemon told us. “What stands out the most is the commitment and dedication and willingness to give of their time from the volunteers we have here.”
Lemon began his firefighting career in 1980 with the Key Peninsula Fire Department in Pierce County and came to Chelan as fire chief in 2009 after a lengthy tenure with the Maple Valley Fire Department in King County.
Lemon’s decade-long run in the lakeside community could easily qualify as one of the most eventful for fire activity in its 119-year history, and he vividly recalls a number of those occasions during his time as chief, including the long, hot summer of 2015.