Battalion chief, lieutenant retire from Homewood Fire Department

The day before his 15th birthday, Darrell Garrett watched a crew of firefighters willingly rush into his burning home to attempt to save it. It was an image that stuck with him.

“I stood in the yard, and I watched all these guys risking their lives to save my house and our stuff,” Garrett said. “As a 15-year-old, I thought that is just so freaking awesome. I want to do that.”

Garrett entered volunteer fire service the next year, the start of a 32-year fire and paramedic career with 23 of those years in Homewood. Now a lieutenant, Garrett is one of two senior members of the department who retired at the end of June. The second is Battalion Chief Mike Anastasia, whose 42-year career also started in volunteer service and culminated in 36 years with Homewood Fire Department.

 “It’s going to be a hole left for a while until we can figure out how to fill it,” Fire Marshal Nick Hill said.

Garrett and Anastasia received their last call — a ceremonial announcement of their last shift, made over the dispatch radio — on June 29. Garrett is leaving for a position as the chief operating officer of the Foundry Ministries. Anastasia leaves to spend time with his grandchildren and perhaps do some part time work.

Between the two, they had nearly 50 years of experience with Homewood Fire Department. It’s a lot of knowledge to lose at one time, Chief John Bresnan said, though he is glad both of them are moving on to good things.

Anastasia’s coworkers and Mayor Scott McBrayer described him as driven and persistent, especially in pursuit of equipment or tools for his firefighters. Anastasia can point to several vehicles and pieces of equipment in the garage of Station 1, including a heavy rescue-equipped engine and a command center, that he was instrumental in bringing to the department. 

“When he leaves, of course there’ll be a little bit of a gap because he did a lot. He’s probably the hardest working firefighter I’ve ever met,” Hill said of Anastasia.

“He’s very result-driven. He will not relax, he’s the most persistent guy I’ve ever met … but he always had the department’s goals at heart,” Garrett said.

Trucks and equipment were very basic, Anastasia said, when he arrived. There were two things that used batteries on a truck at the time, and now he spends $6,000 yearly on batteries. When it comes to Homewood’s top-of-the-line equipment — including new thermal imaging tools that help firefighters see their surroundings in smoke-filled buildings — Garrett said: “Mike did that.”

He has also pushed for ongoing training so firefighters are ready to handle anything from swift water rescues to freak blizzards.

“That’s all about readiness,” Anastasia said. “Readiness is one of the most important things to me.”

Anastasia’s career started as a volunteer medic, the first in Cullman. He was part of a volunteer fire and rescue crew there before starting his service with Homewood as a firefighter. A photo of Anastasia and the rest of his rookie class from 1981 still hangs on the wall of Station 1.

“I think what I wanted to do was serve people, and then figure out how,” he said.

The moments he recalled on his last day in the firehouse were moments where Homewood’s fire department lent a helping hand — or occasionally a helping chainsaw, in the case of natural disasters such as the 2011 tornado in Hackleburg — not only to their own city but to fire departments around the region. He compared those occasions to the feeling of a touchdown.

“This has been my everything, like my football games, for example. Some people get all excited when their football team makes a score, and I get all excited when we accomplish some goal that I know or can see will make a huge difference in somebody’s life in their worst possible moment,” Anastasia said.

Garrett’s career did not lead as directly to Homewood as Anastasia. After two years as a teen volunteer firefighter — part of the “Fearsome Foursome” of teen recruits, he said — Garrett became an ambulance medic working with fire departments around the over-the-mountain area. Of them all, Garrett said he and his partner liked working with Homewood the best.

Garrett’s partner was the first to be hired by Homewood, and he followed a couple years later after working for Birmingham Fire. His career with Homewood included a number of roles, from firefighter to technical rescue training leader to fire inspector for the last two years. 

“It was an honor to get here and it’s been an amazing ride,” Garrett said at a retirement party June 28.

He worked directly under Anastasia on some projects, including creation of the heavy rescue unit and training programs for rope andtrench rescues.

“We accomplished a lot together,” Garrett said of his time as Anastasia’s lieutenant.

In every position he has held in Homewood, Garrett said he continued to enjoy coming to work every day because he got the chance to help people.

“He has always been a knowledgeable firefighter and a good firefighter,” Hill said of Garrett, adding that he has been “invaluable” in his most recent inspections role and in communicating with the public.

There are hard realities to the job, Anastasia said. Garrett can recall instances where he and his crew weren’t able to save their patients, but the ones that matter most to him are the lives that he knows are still being lived because of him.

“That really is the highlight,” Garrett said.

In his new role at the Foundry, Garrett plans to continue helping lives in a new way, guiding operations of the ministry’s work with drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness and re-entry to regular life after prison. Garrett said he only chose to retire because of the exceptional opportunity, as he has been an ordained pastor for nine years and had considered ministry becoming his career.

“What I’m looking forward to is being able to make a difference in people’s lives,” Garrett said.

Both Anastasia and Garrett received their retired fire helmets as a parting gift from the fire department. Each said what they would miss most was the camaraderie and “brotherhood” developed within the department.

“They had a lot of impact on the fire department and a lot of people. So we’re going to miss that impact,” Hill said. “I will miss them both.”