Columbia-Walla Walla Fire District 2 announces new fire chief

WAITSBURG-Columbia-Walla Walla County Fire District 2 is excited to announce the new fire chief, Michael Moynihan, from San Francisco, California.

Chief Moynihan began his position as the first paid fire chief in the history of CWWFD2 on Monday, September 21. Born and raised in San Francisco, Moynihan has more than 30 years of firefighting experience.

He began as a firefighter/EMT with a volunteer fire department, very similar to the one that serves Waitsburg and the surrounding area. He took his first career job at the University of California Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, serving as a firefighter for more than nine years and acting captain from 1999-2000.

Moynihan was offered a position with the San Francisco Fire Department in November of 2000, where he served as a firefighter for nearly 20 years. During his time with the SFFD, Moynihan served as a temporary lieutenant from 2013-2017 and temporary captain from 2017 until his retirement in June 2020.

The new fire chief says that he plans on focusing on training and mentorship.

"Coming from a department like San Francisco, my impression of what a fire chief should be doing, especially in a small town like this, is training, training, training," he said. "Once you get that done, everything else will fall into place."

He plans on becoming a mentor to young people interested in emergency response and firefighting, helping those interested along the way to becoming a career responder.

"We are very excited to have him here," said fire commissioner Randy Charles. "He's going to be a great asset to the department."