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Serving as a volunteer firefighter was in his blood from a very young age, so it was not a surprise when Tim Rivard joined the Taylors Falls Fire Department 30 years ago.

Now, Rivard is ready to step aside after 16 years as chief of the fire department, but says he is not ready to give up serving his community as a volunteer firefighter.

Rivard grew up watching his dad serve as a volunteer on the Taylors Falls Fire Department. It was only natural that he would be interested in doing the same.

“My dad and my uncles were members,” he said. “I remember when I was little, I wanted to go with, then when I got old enough, I wanted to volunteer.”

Rivard also has two brothers currently on the fire department with him and the new chief, Kevin Rivard, is his cousin.

There are currently 25 members of the TF Fire Department. Officers include the chief, two assistant chiefs and two captains. Rivard and 16 other members are trained First Responders, which means they can offer medical assistance at the scene of accidents or when people are injured in a fire.

He said the amount of training is one of the biggest changes he has seen throughout his years on the department. The state requires more and more training each year for department members, Rivard said, which is definitely an advantage.

Because Interstate State Park and the St. Croix River are within Taylors Falls boundaries, the firefighters all receive training in water rescues and repelling. This training has helped during the several cliff rescues the department has made at the park, including within the Wisconsin side of the park.

Rivard said how they fight fires has changed as well.

“We used to fight fires defensively – surround and drown,” he said. “Now it’s more offensive where you’re going into the fire.”

He said when he first joined the department, they had two air packs for use when entering fires. “I think they were both still in the packaging,” he said.

Now, the department has 20 airpacks that are used during training and in fires. The equipment has become a lot easier to use too, Rivard said.

He said the fire hall has moved twice since he joined the department, but it’s nice to have adequate space for training, meetings and the department trucks and equipment. The department is currently awaiting the delivery of two new trucks to replace outdated models.

Fortunately, there aren’t many calls coming into the Taylors Falls Fire Department each year – it’s around 30, Rivard said. Like most firefighters, he remembers the big ones.

The most recent was when the Livery Mall building burned down in downtown Taylors Falls in Jan. 2002.

“It was a defensive fire. When we got there, it wasn’t worth sending someone in, it was already gone,” he said. Rivard also remembers a fire at Romayne’s Bar in downtown Taylors Falls. “That was a big fire too, but we ended up saving that one.”

He said he enjoys that part of the job – going into the fire, smoke and heat – which is why he is staying on the department. The chief’s role is to stay outside of the fire and run the operations from there. Now, he will be able to go back in.

“I want to be able to do that before I get too old,” Rivard joked.

It was usually easy to judge how to handle a fire, so serving as chief wasn’t stressful for Rivard.

“Most fires are easy to judge. If it’s not and you are debating whether or not to send people in, then you don’t send them.”

He definitely won’t miss the paperwork and filing reports that go along with the chief position.

“I don’t like budgeting, the normal office stuff,” he said.

The main reason he has stuck around so long and served as chief for 16 years is the firefighters he has served with, Rivard said.

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