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Meet Fire Chief Rob Arbini of the Chelsea Area Fire Authority

Courtesy photo. Chelsea Fire Chief Rob Arbini and his wife, Brenda at the April 2022 Midwest Fire Expo Rescue Expo in Novi.

(This is the third in a large series of profile stories planned for 2023 to introduce the Chelsea community to the folks who keep it humming each day. We want you to learn more about Chelsea as a community — as told through the eyes, ears and voices of many different people.)

By Lisa Allmendinger

On Feb. 20, Rob Arbini will mark his sixth year as the chief of the Chelsea Area Fire Authority (CAFA).

And similar to Police Sgt. Rich Kinsey, the first profile in this series, Arbini was in college planning a completely different career path before dedicating his life to public safety.

While in school studying to become a corporate lawyer, he was working a part-time job, and was “persuaded” to take the entrance exam for the Westland Fire Department by a retired firefighter who was a co-worker.

Although skeptical of his chances, “As I successfully completed each portion of the testing requirements, I became more invested.”

He finished second out of approximately 400 candidates who started the process.

On June 29, 1992, he began his 28-year career in firefighting, and spent his first eight hours in the classroom “getting acclimated to what was expected, learning the names of tools, and equipment. It was fairly overwhelming,” he said.

At Westland, he moved up the ranks from firefighter to sergeant to captain, battalion chief and finally deputy chief.

Then he became a general manager for a private ambulance company from 2013-1015 before traveling to the west coast to take a job as the division chief of operations for another fire department.

“I spent 2016 in Klamath Falls, Oregon, by myself,” he said. “My wife and kids stayed back in Michigan, so it was a difficult year. My wife and youngest son planned on moving to Oregon in June 2017 after he finished middle school.”

Then the opening in Chelsea crossed his desk and everything changed.

“When the opportunity came to put my name in for consideration for the fire chief opening [in Chelsea], I had to give it a try. I had nothing to lose by doing so,” he said.

File photo. New Fire Chief Robert Arbini (on left) and Interim Chief Jon Ichesco exchange the Chelsea Area Fire Chief’s helmet.

When he arrived in town from Klamath Falls, Arbini was tasked with taking over a group of firefighters, many of whom had Chelsea ties, and a familiarity with the people in the towns the authority serves – the City of Chelsea and Lima, Lyndon and Sylvan townships.

One of his first challenges – how best to lead and grow CAFA for a community that has an older population where medical runs account for most of the calls.

In 2022, CAFA responded to about 2,200 calls for service. Medical calls are “typically 80-85 percent of the call volume,” he said.

CAFA recently added an ambulance to its fleet. “By having our own ambulance, we now have the ability to leave the scene sooner and get the patient to the hospital,” he said.

This also means a quicker turnaround to get the vehicle and firefighters back in service for the next call.

“If we didn’t have the ability to transport, we could, and have, waited as long as 45 minutes on a scene for a transporting unit,” to arrive and take a patient to a hospital.

Since Arbini was hired, CAFA has also replaced fire engines and increased staff by 33 percent – from nine shift personnel to 12 firefighters. Since May 2022, there’s now also a part-time fire inspector, who inspects businesses in the four communities to ensure that they are current with all safety requirements in the current fire code.  

Courtesy photo. Rob Fire Chief Rob Arnini enjoys spending time with his family. In this photo are his three sons Joshua, Jason, Justin at a family wedding.

Costs are paid for by a 2.4 mill millage paid voted on by residents in the CAFA service area, which is projected to bring in about $2.437 million in 2023.

About 70 percent of CAFA’s budget goes for personnel, 10 percent for capital replacement for new vehicles, and the remainder for general operating costs such as water, electric and smaller purchases.

A new fire station has been added in Lyndon Township next to the township hall, so CAFA now operates three – Station 1 on Middle Street in Chelsea, Station 2 on Jackson Road in Lima Township, and Station 3 on North Territorial Road in Lyndon Township.

The main station was built in 1963 when the department was predominately a volunteer organization, Arbini said, and today, with career firefighters sleeping inside, the building no longer meets the department’s requirements.

CAFA is in need of a new main fire station for a number of reasons. Personnel are all sleeping in one large room. They need a larger training room, and the weight room is located inside the equipment bay area, so firefighters are exposed to carbon monoxide when vehicles come and go.

Structural integrity of the building is among the other problems with Station 1. The building is deteriorating, the bay floor is sagging where the vehicles are parked, and it does not meet ADA standards.

File photo of Fire Chief Rob Arbini and firefighters Tyler Mutter and Joe Valentine when they were first hired in 2019.

Plus, the administrative offices are located on the second floor with no way out if the stairway becomes compromised. In addition to the chief’s office location on the second floor, so, too, is the part-time administrative assistant’s desk.

With the addition of the ambulance and transport services, Arbini is also weighing the possibility of additional personnel who are paramedics to change CAFA’s transport license level from basic life support to advanced life support.

Currently, CAFA is in the process of finding a location to construct a new main station, but it needs to be centrally located, and close to the city’s senior living facilities where a majority of the calls originate.  

Although medical calls amount to the majority of CAFA’s runs, fighting fires is what CAFA personnel are trained to do. And there have been some memorable ones since Arbini arrived.

One scene that stands out for him took place a few years ago at Chelsea Self Storage on Pielemeier Drive. A building was lost, but firefighters were able to contain it, and stop other buildings from going up in flames as well.

“There could have been many buildings lost if it wasn’t for our personnel as well as personnel from neighboring departments. The owners were extremely grateful for the effort,” he said.

An Arbini family portrait. Fire Chief Rob Arbini, wife Brenda, Jason, Joshua, and Justin.

Married to his wife, Brenda, for 27 years, Arbini has three sons, Joshua, Justin, and Jason, ages 26, 24 and 19.

Arbini also recently added grandpa to his resume – his oldest son and wife welcomed a new baby to the family.

When not on the job, Arbini considers himself a bit of a “homebody,” but does enjoy a night of billards once a week.

“Occasionally, my wife takes me out to a few local bars to listen to live music,” he said.

Arbini enjoys spring, summer and fall on the water, and traveling to different baseball fields to watch is son play for Saginaw Valley State University.

When he originally applied for the job, Arbini learned “there’s a significant amount of pride and history in this community and it felt like the right place to be.”

For many people, three of Chelsea’s best calling cards involve public safety – in no particular order, its hospital, police department and fire department.

When hired six years ago, Arbini said his goal was to make CAFA one of the best small town fire departments in the state.

He’s making great progress in that direction.

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