East Liverpool Fire Department swears in new firefighter
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EAST LIVERPOOL - The East Liverpool Fire Department welcomed a new firefighter to its team with the swearing in of firefighter Anthony Jones on Friday morning at central station.
With the move of firefighter Jason Reinke to the position of fire marshal, the department had to hire another firefighter to fill the spot left vacant in order to maintain the safety grant it recently received to provide the department with four additional firefighters.
Jones, who has had a longtime interest in firefighting, attended the fire academy right after graduating high in 2015. He began his career after the fire academy with the Jackson Township Fire Department in Mahoning County, where he has been working for the past 11 years. He started out there as a volunteer firefighter and then went to a part-time paid position. He worked his way up to the positions of captain and head of fire inspections.
Jones said his uncle, John Jones, was a part-time firefighter with Austintown Fire Department and worked a full-time position as an EMT with Lane Lifetrans Paramedics, and he grew up looking up to him for being a fireman.
"It's one of those jobs that every child names that they want to do, so when I graduated high school I was determined that was something I wanted to pursue," Jones said.
While he will be a full-time firefighter with East Liverpool, he will maintain his part-time position with Jackson Township Fire Department and lieutenant for the Mahoning County Haz-Mat Team.
While working in his part-time position, Jones has also worked as a 911 dispatcher for five years and worked for companies such as MES, for which he worked with fire extinguisher and hood compression systems. He has also worked for Johnson Controls, but left that position to take the full-time position with East Liverpool Fire Department. During his time at Johnson Controls he worked as a fire alarm inspector.
When asked why he decided to join East Liverpool Fire Department, Jones said, "I have always had a passion for the fire service, and it was definitely something I want to pursue full-time. I worked hard over 11 years getting the licenses that I needed to make that happen and then I had heard that East Liverpool was hiring full-time and was told that I should apply for it."
Jones, who was named Mahoning County Firefighter of the year in 2024, noted that this is the first full-time position he applied for and it all worked out in his favor.
Fire Chief Antony Cumo said Jones will be a great addition to the department, coming to them very well certified with experience including his Haz-Mat tech, EMT and firefighter II. Cumo also noted that it is hard sometimes for a department the size of East Liverpool to hire people that don't have certifications. The department still has their last hire finishing up his training, which takes about a year to go through the basic classes. By the time the additional classes are added on, there is about three years invested in training.
Cumo said hiring somebody who has the training, experience and certifications is a good thing and the only thing Jones will need to do is go to medic school, because all East Liverpool Fire Department firefighters also have to be paramedics.
Jones will work his first shift with the department on Oct. 29.