This edition of Code 3 is a little different than most.
It’s about a Fire Chief who lost his job after he incurred the wrath of the Union
Local’s officials and, ultimately, the IAFF.
Scott Freitag was the chief of the Central Arizona Fire and Medical Authority, or
CAFMA.
The agency was created under Scott’s leadership when two fire districts combined under
a JMA to form CAFMA in 2015.
CAFMA covers 365 square miles of territory of Yavapai County, Arizona. And it serves
about 100,000 residents from 12 stations.
One day in August 2024, a press release showed up in email inboxes saying that the
IAFF had censured Scott Freitag by a vote of 2,520 to 0.
I
was pretty startled to get this news because I know Scott Freitag to be an
honest, decent Fire Chief who was genuinely concerned about the welfare of his
firefighters.
As you’ll hear, the no-confidence vote led to Scott’s firing after 11 years as
Fire Chief in September 2024.
How this all went down depends on whose story you believe. It may well have had
little to do with firefighting and much more to do with politics and a health
plan.
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