WILTON — The city’s newest fire chief brings more than 30 years of firefighting experience, but it was almost a career that didn’t happen.
Michael Blatchley, a Bethany native who was sworn in on Monday, admitted his career as a firefighter almost didn’t materialize – twice – because he once had a different dream.
“I originally wanted to be a police officer,” Blatchley said of his desires as a young man attending Amity High School. By the time he graduated in 1990, he was already applying to become a Connecticut State Trooper. He even remembers that a state trooper came to his childhood home to question him in depth.
“They basically told me I was the perfect candidate they were looking for,” Blatchley said. “He said that probably the only thing that could really push my candidacy over the top was some kind of voluntary service.”
In a small town like Bethany, he said, his options were limited. He and a friend became intrigued by the idea of volunteering with the local fire department.
At 18, Blatchley walked into a fire station, a place he said he immediately fell in love with, and hasn’t come out since.
While enrolled in classes with the Bethany Volunteer Fire Department, Blatchley was still awaiting the results of his application to the state police.
“Well, I ended up being rejected for my eyesight without glasses,” Blatchley said.
After the rejection in 1991, Blatchley still held out hope that her fate would change. He wanted to stand firm and continue to pass police tests. Shortly after, he said the age limit for becoming a police officer had been raised from 18 to 21. This gave him some time to focus on a noticeably growing affinity for serving with firefighters.
Blatchley continued on that path, working diligently to become a full-time firefighter, and by 1997 he had landed what he considered his dream job in exactly the place he wanted to be. After serving as a volunteer for most of the 1990s in Bethany, Blatchley became a full-time member of the New Haven Fire Department, stationed at the same fire station his then-retired uncle had served as a fire captain. .
Sensing that he had finally arrived where he was meant to be, a curve ball was suddenly thrown at him.
After working night shifts in New Haven for eight to nine months, Blatchley received a letter from the state police. He noted the outcome of a class action lawsuit that says anyone who had been denied entry to the academy previously because of “uncorrected vision below 20/40 correctable to 20/20” should at least be offered the possibility of a job.
Blatchley took the letter with him to his shift that night, conflicted and caught between pursuing the dream job he had as a child or staying the course at the gig he fell in love with at the fire station .
He showed the letter to one of his fellow firefighters.
“He kept saying, ‘Kid, what are you going to do kid? That’s a great job, kid,'” Blatchley recalled of his colleague. “I just didn’t know.”
Then, as he was talking about a decision he knew would impact the rest of his life, he sensed something and looked over his shoulder to see that another colleague had just finished. dinner for the whole fire station.
“I still remember what was for dinner,” Blatchley recalls, “sausage and broccoli.”
It was then, at this precise moment, that Blatchley’s decision was made. It was the camaraderie, the family atmosphere in the fire station that had first attracted him and now held him.
“I knew I was where I wanted to be,” he said.
In 1998, Blatchley also became a member of the American Medical Response team in New Haven, an outpatient service where he honed his skills as an emergency medical technician. He spent the next 15 years in New Haven where he met his wife, then a graduate theater student at Yale.
Anticipating a move to New York for his theatrical career, he began to look more to southwestern Connecticut to relocate his career and his family. Greenwich first offered him a role in 2012, a role he was not yet ready to accept.
Then the Wilton Fire Department offered him a position in 2013 as a firefighter and EMT. Blatchley happily agreed and was on his way to a place that had more of a “small town feel” like his hometown after serving in a city for the better part of two decades.
Blatchley said COVID offered a unique challenge for him and his cohort, forcing everyone to be fluid and constantly changing their approach to solving problems. But he said he was happy to take on the challenge because helping others solve their problems is one of the reasons he fell in love with serving the department.
“The best thing about the fire department is that if you call 911, two to six guys from Wilton will show up at your door to fix any issues you may have,” he said. “Whether your house is on fire, you have a heart attack, a leaky pipe or a fire alarm or smoke detectors go off, well-trained people are there to solve your problem.”
Now, as one of four fire captains, he seeks to pass on his knowledge to the young generation of firefighters to come and hopes to instill the same fervor for service that he has had throughout his career.
