Longtime Petaluma firefighter Jeff Holden retires

Jeff Holden’s last service call as a Petaluma firefighter was for a malfunctioning heater that filled a young family’s home with smoke.

After returning to the station around 6 a.m. on Friday, Holden, 54, a Battalion Chief for the Petaluma Fire Department, cleaned out his office and, a few hours later, clocked out for the final time, ending a 33-year career as a first responder in Sonoma County. He spent more than 28 of those years in Petaluma.

Providing emergency services comes with extremes, seeing death delivered and life restored. Things can and do go wrong, Holden said, and having a final call where something went right was fitting.

“The fire detector worked,” he said with a smile.

Holden began his education in the early 1980s, hoping to take over his father’s veterinary practice. As a child, born and raised in Sonoma, he assisted him with service calls and developed a love for farm animals. Even now, he raises sheep on his property just outside Petaluma.

As a Santa Rosa Junior College student, after taking various science prerequisites, he attended a veterinary seminar in Davis where he learned he needed to have community service hours before applying for vet school. Through a family friend, he began volunteering for the Valley of the Moon Fire Protection District, which is now part of the Sonoma Valley Fire and Rescue Authority with Sonoma.

Three years later, the chief offered him a full-time position and he accepted the offer – contingent on the approval of his parents, Holden said. During a phone call in front of his chief, he told them what he had been up to and assured his parents of his commitment to finishing out his education.

In 1991, he graduated with a business degree from Sonoma State.

“I just took nine or 10 hours off and went to school, came back, and finished my shift out,” Holden recalled. “It was a challenge. I was falling asleep in my chemistry class at 9 o’clock in the morning, and (my teacher) was like, ‘Why are you falling asleep in my class?’ I’m like, ‘Well, because I’m a fireman and I was up last night.’”

Holden said some of the best schooling was done inside the firehouse, learning from men like Mike Haberski, Mike Ahlin, Dan Eperson and Art Fanucchi. Aside from the technical skills required for the job, he learned how to be a better father and husband, a smarter planner and saver, and even gained a lot of specialized knowledge that comes in handy on some of the more unique calls.

“In the fire service, you’ve got to be a jack of all trades because - when people have a problem - they call the fire department,” Holden said. “You can’t just know your medical and fire stuff. You’ve got to be able to identify electrical problems or plumbing problems, or general building construction things. Someone in the firehouse has been there and done it.”

Holden has responded to every sort of incident, face to face with accidents where many lived and many have also died. He’s been on the frontlines of some of Petaluma’s most notable blazes over the last three decades, like the fire on Technology Lane in 2002 that torched an entire subdivision that was under construction.

Holden was first on the scene that day.

On the night the October 2017 wildfires ignited in Sonoma County, Holden had filled in for a sick firefighter and ended up working the next four days, he said. He made decisions that protected homes and saved lives in Glen Ellen that night, deploying local engines beyond the usual norm for mutual aid while leaving a skeleton crew behind to protect Petaluma.

Over the next few days, more than 80 percent of the entire department was out on all five engines assisting with fire suppression.

In fact, that was just the first of three additional wildfires Holden would lead a Sonoma County Strike Team to that fall. He spent several of his final years with the department working on some of the most intense wildland blazes in state history.

On Dec. 14, 2017, he was in Santa Barbara battling the Thomas Fire when apparatus engineer Cory Iverson was killed. Holden and his crew heard his final minutes on the radio before relieving that team of their duties.

“There’s a lot of stuff that builds up (mentally),” he said. “It’s a physical job, and it’s a young man’s game … and most people don’t get to go out as healthy as I am. I’ve been really fortunate that way.”

Holden will have more time to spend with his wife of 28 years, Cathe Holden, and his three children, Bennett, 22, Jamie, 21, and Sarah, 21.

Jeff Holden said he plans on staying involved at the county level, assisting with training operations, providing dispatch support, and continuing to lead strike teams into major fires.

And by retiring now, it allows a new battalion chief to step in and some positive shifting within the department for firefighters ready to assume executive positions.

“I’ve been there, done it and now it’s time for someone else,” he said.

It’s that group he’ll miss most, he says. From all the lessons at the table, the thousands of service calls and sweat expended at burn sites across the state, it’s the camaraderie gained from working for as a public safety employee in the same community for decades that will leave the biggest imprint.

“I spent half my time at home and half my time at work,” Holden said. “The relationships that you have, I’ve lived with these guys for 30 years. I’ve known my wife for 30 years. Those roots run pretty darn deep.”

(Contact News Editor Yousef Baig at yousef.baig@arguscourier.com or 776-8461, and on Twitter @YousefBaig.)