Cody Craig
CHICORA — For Cody Craig, firefighting runs in the family.
Craig, chief of the Chicora Volunteer Fire Department, is a fourth-generation firefighter who entered the profession at the age of 14, following his grandfather, father, and uncles into the field.
“It's kind of like a family thing,” Craig said. “But my biggest thing is to provide a service to the community whenever they’re in need.”
Now 36 years old, Craig has been honored for his decades of service to Butler County by being nominated as a Hometown Hero by the Chicora/East Brady Rotary.
“I was honored to actually have the people take the time to nominate me as a candidate for the Hometown Hero,” Craig said. “I was happy and surprised at the same time.”
Those who helped nominate Craig were effusive with their praise of the fire chief.
“Cody goes over and above for our community,” retired Chicora native Joe Farone said. “He puts in a lot of his time.”
“It takes a lot of volunteer hours for him to perform his duties,” said Lynn Bayer, Craig’s mother-in-law. “When his beeper goes off, he is on his way, day or night.”
Craig spent the first two years of his firefighting career in the junior program of the Petrolia Volunteer Fire Department, before moving on to his hometown fire department in Chicora as soon as he turned 16 years old. He’s been with the Chicora VFD ever since.
“Back then there wasn't too many departments that actually had junior programs. A lot of departments were 16 years of age to join,” Craig said. “So I joined over there (in Petrolia) with close friends, and then we went to our home departments after we were done. It was 14 over there to join and 16 to join here.”
Since then, the Chicora VFD has changed the minimum age of sign-up to 14, matching Petrolia.
Over his time at the Chicora department, Craig has risen through the ranks, from firefighter to lieutenant to assistant chief, and eventually to chief. Craig is also a trained emergency medical technician.
As Chicora’s fire department is volunteer-based, Craig’s occupation as fire chief is a side gig to his full-time job. Craig earns his living working as a maintenance technician at the Cleveland-Cliffs steel plant in Butler.
The combination of the two responsibilities means that his workdays are usually long, as his shift at Cleveland-Cliffs starts at 6 a.m. This is no sweat for Craig.
“There is opportunity for overtime. It's a great-paying job, and I'm local,” Craig said. “It's nice being close to home.”
Most of the time, life as a fire chief isn’t nearly as dramatic or heart-stopping as is seen on prime-time television. Many of Craig’s responsibilities as the chief include data entry, logistics, billing, incident reporting, and making sure the fire department runs smoothly.
“I handle the operations side,” Craig said. “You have a chief, assistant chief, captain and two lieutenants, but also you have a ladder captain. So I kind of oversee that all their duties are completed.”
Craig estimates the Chicora VFD receives an average of 250 emergency calls per year, which includes fire, rescue, and EMS. While he doesn’t remember the details of every single emergency call he’s ever responded to, he takes satisfaction in the fact that he and his department have always done what they can to assist in times of crisis.
“Sometimes we don't hear too much about the outcome of a patient at an incident,” Craig said. “But to actually receive like thank you cards and stuff like that … to see a smile on someone's face whenever you're there to help, I guess that's the memorable thing about it.”
