RICHMOND, Va. -- Richmond Chief of Fire and Emergency Services Melvin Carter, who started out as a volunteer and became the third Black chief in the department's history, will be retiring at the end of the year.
“I am profoundly grateful God provided me opportunity to serve the city where I was born and raised for the past 37 years," Carter said. "It has been a true blessing to realize my childhood dream in this capacity. I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Mayor Stoney for entrusting me with the leadership of the Richmond Fire Department during his tenure. It has been an honor to serve in this role.”
The mayor, who said he was told Friday about Carter's decision, thanked the Richmond native for his service.
"He's the first African American native of Richmond, born and raised in the city, to rise to the rank of Fire Chief of the Fire and Emergency Services Department," Stoney said. "After nearly 40 years of service and seven years as our Fire Chief, I want to thank him for his unwavering commitment to the safety of his hometown. We are a safer city because of Melvin Carter, and I wish him the best in retirement."
Officials said Assistant Fire Chief Jeffrey Segal will be appointed as the department's interim chief. He joined the department in 2020 after spending more than 30 years with the Baltimore City Fire Department.
Officials said a national search will begin in the coming weeks to find the city's next chief.
VIDEO VAULT FROM 2021: First Richmonder to become fire chief calls experience 'the greatest'
“I was born on July the Fourth, 1963," Carter told CBS 6 in a 2021 interview. "The Richmond Fire Department integrated on July 6, 1963, and so I was born two days before, and now I sit as the 21st fire chief.”
When Chief Carter was appointed to the role in 2017, he became the first and only native Richmonder to rise through the ranks within the department to fire chief in its history.
It is also the same department to which the man who grew up in the Newtowne West neighborhood is eternally grateful. Not just for the job, but also for RFD saving his three younger siblings in 1968.
“My two brothers and my sister almost died in a house fire on Bowe and Leigh Street, and so that also helped to reinforce why I wanted to be a firefighter," Carter recalled in 2021."But knowing what I know now as a fire professional I know it was a pretty significant and bad fire. And so, with all the turmoil that was going on in the sixties, as you might imagine in particular around 1968, the men and women of this organization saved my brothers and sisters.”
For the last seven years, Carter has been in charge of a staff of nearly 450 people. He said the job came with its challenges. But that has not stopped the chief from trying to instill a certain mindset in his staff.
“The greatest challenge has really been I think reinforcing the narrative for our firefighters to believe in themselves and what they do," he explained. "And that we are a phenomenal fire department and that we all exist. All of our position numbers exist to serve the citizens of Richmond.”
Being a firefighter is one of the toughest jobs physically, and perhaps even more so mentally. For the lives you save, and the lives that have been lost.
“The things that continue to haunt that you continue to relive over and over in your mind," he said as his eyes watered. "Oh man, just sobering. The breath of the position and what you’re exposed to and what you’re involved in.”
But it is a job that Carter said he has loved spanning five different decades. He said he is even luckier to do it in his hometown.
“To do what you love to do, and to get compensated for it. And to do it where you grew up, I think outside of loving your family and being blessed is probably the greatest experience and love I can ever have,” Carter said.
