Sedgwick County names Chief Clint Reed 2025 Firefighter of the Year

Sedgwick County announced Chief Clint Reed as the recipient of the 2025 Firefighter of the Year award. A presenter for the Sedgwick County Fire District introduced Reed and highlighted his work with the county's 9-1-1 dispatching center to align responses with reported call types.

Clint Reed, division chief at Station 34, said he splits duties between frontline emergency response and, on days off, working in emergency fire dispatching. "Not only do I do the emergency response and the daily operations as a division chief down at Station 34, but on my days that I'm not on duty, I'll come in and I'll do emergency fire dispatching," Reed said.

Reed described a new program that programs fire responses by call type rather than treating all calls the same. "So in the past, everything was just lumped together," he said, adding that the change prevents lower-priority incidents, such as a grass fire with no structure threatened, from automatically triggering a full structure response. "This allows for us to have more units available for higher priority calls and sending the right units at the right time," Reed said.

Reed said the program is still "going through the growing stage" and credited his relationship with the 9-1-1 center with helping resolve implementation problems. A presenter also praised Reed's work providing outside training and classes, saying that he brings knowledge back to the department to improve safety at fire scenes and vehicle accidents.

Reed described mentoring newer members and sharing lessons learned: "Any knowledge that I have, I wanna share with individuals. When you see them start from day 1 all the way through their first years, the growth that you get to see from them is actually amazing." The presenter closed by congratulating Chief Reed and saying Sedgwick County residents are safer because of his contributions.

No formal policy actions, votes, or funding decisions were recorded in the remarks.