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Fire Chief to Pursue Car Passion After Retiring

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

New Port Richey Director of Fire and Emergency Services Daniel Azzariti has two passions, the Fire Department and old cars.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: November 21, 2007

When they were growing up, Bill Azzariti would not allow his little brother Daniel to touch his Intermeccanica Italia, an Italian-made car with a Ford engine.

Dan eventually one-upped his brother – or rather, five-upped him.

Today, he owns five Italias, one with the serial number 00001 indicating it was the first car produced in the series.

Azzariti's passion for cars will be able to run free when he retires as New Port Richey's director of fire and emergency services in about a year. He has set Sept. 30, 2008, the end of the city's 2008 budget year, as his tentative retirement date.

Cars are a big part of a conversation with Azzariti. He has "a bunch" of them – 20, to be exact – muscle cars all stored around Spring Hill, where he lives.

The other topic Azzariti loves to talk about is his Fire Department, the focus of his life for 30 years.

Combines 2 loves

Azzariti focuses on his two loves with a kind of perfectionism that appears to underlie his low-key demeanor.

"Whatever I do, I try to be the very best," he says.

Take the matter of fire department-based emergency medical technicians, a subject about which Azzariti says he is passionate.

He searches his memory for numbers of EMTs in the department when he became chief in 1995. At first he remembers being the only one and then thinks there might have been another.

At any rate, the department was lacking in EMTs.

Now, more than 50 percent of New Port Richey firefighters are qualified as paramedics, a rung above EMT.

Advanced procedures

That has allowed the department to earn a state classification as advanced life support provider, allowing it to perform advanced life support procedures, most often employed when treating heart attacks and related circulatory problems.

Formerly, it was a first responder agency with staff permitted to administer basic first aid while waiting for an ALS crew, usually from Pasco County Fire Rescue, to arrive.

Its large number of EMTs is ideal for the most common emergencies the department gets, says the chief. "The vast majority of calls we run are rescue calls," not fighting fires.

Becoming a paramedic filled a dream of the man who says he loves helping people. He formerly worked on Bayflite, emergency helicopter services for critically ill and injured.

The self-admitted adrenaline junkie was drawn to the immediacy of treating the severely injured. "Time is an important element. You feel what you're doing has a lot of impact right there."

Azzariti served for many years as chairman of the Florida Fire Chiefs' Association EMS Section and is now president of the Association of Emergency Medical Services Providers of Florida.

Had close calls

After having close calls himself, Azzariti has continued the focus on safety that began in his department in the 1980s with a fire in four businesses on downtown Grand Boulevard.

He will always remember the fire as the time he learned he and his fellow firefighters were not invincible, Azzariti says. He and four other firefighters were in a building when it collapsed.

"That was a fire where we could have lost the department," he says.

He was also in danger during the March 13, 1993, "Storm of the Century" coastal flood emergency. He and other firefighters were fighting a fire in a commercial building on U.S. 19 when the building began to fill up with water.

At first, they thought it was due to a malfunction of the fire hoses, but later they discovered the water was part of a 10-foot storm surge.

Luckily, they were able to get out unharmed, although one of their firetrucks was stranded for a time.

Gets better rating

Under Azzariti's stewardship, the Fire Department has gone from a Class 5 to Class 3 Insurance Services Office rating. Lower ratings usually translate into lower property insurance premiums.

"Usually departments reduce them through increased staff and equipment," he explains.

But New Port Richey got the lower rating without the taxpayers' dime. It improved recordkeeping and training and worked with the Department of Public Works to better the city's water distribution system.

Azzariti recently combined his firefighting and love of cars when he bought the first firetruck to which he was assigned in New Port Richey.

In talking to the Hernando Beach fire chief, he discovered the old Dodge Mini-Pumper firetruck was going to be put up for auction in Hernando Beach, where it had gone when New Port Richey sold it.

Azzariti bid and won it for $1,200.

"It's a neat old truck. It's got history," he says.

Has collector car

The truck will have to share him was his flock of other aged autos.

The fire chief still has the first collector car, a 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A , he bought in 1978.

"It's been sitting in the garage all these years," he says. "I want to finish it up and make it perfect."

He doesn't have the time to work on the cars. Until he retires, he must limit his involvement with his second passion – belonging to a muscle car club in Spring Hill and running a car cruise every Friday there.

The cars remind him of his youth growing up in Seaford, Long Island, N.Y.

"They were all around when I was a kid," he remembers. "I always wanted one but never could afford them."

Retiring from 'family'

Even his beloved cars can't stem Azzariti's sadness when he thinks of leaving his job. His retirement from the department and the people he calls his family will be an emotional one.

Azzariti lives in Spring Hill with his wife Nancy. They have three children, Christopher, 22; Daniel, 20; and Jennifer, 17. The link to firefighting will not be broken. Daniel recently graduated from the Florida State Fire College.

"Where else can you get a job working with people you care about and doing things you love to do? And they pay you to do it," said Azzariti.

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