{"id":8945,"date":"2025-06-23T20:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T20:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8945\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T20:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T20:52:09","slug":"finalists-one-step-closer-to-new-jacksonville-fire-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8945\/","title":{"rendered":"Finalists one step closer to new Jacksonville Fire Chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The following five finalists are interviewing with Mayor Deegan over the next few days:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Damian Bell<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Jake Blanton<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Percy Golden<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Darin Hooten<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Willie King<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">First round interviews were conducted with all 17 candidates. There were originally 17 candidates and another 12 were deemed ineligible. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The search began after the current fire chief, Keith Powers, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2025\/05\/15\/its-been-the-honor-of-my-lifetime-jfrd-chief-keith-powers-to-retire-on-july-1-after-29-years-of-service\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2025\/05\/15\/its-been-the-honor-of-my-lifetime-jfrd-chief-keith-powers-to-retire-on-july-1-after-29-years-of-service\/\">announced an early retirement in May<\/a>. He will be leaving on June 30.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Lots of current and former firefighters applied for the top spot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">On July 1, a new chief of the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department (JFRD) will be announced by the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The mayor will appoint the new fire chief, and it is subject to confirmation by the city council.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following five finalists are interviewing with Mayor Deegan over the next few days: Damian Bell Jake Blanton&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,10082,10081,3188,723,7310,5812,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-8945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-chief","10":"tag-fire-fighter","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-search","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}