Brett Bowman to retire as Manassas City fire chief

Brett Bowman said he always planned on retiring by 2018. He decided to bump up his ride off into the sunset by two years.

Bowman will leave his job as Manassas City Fire Department Chief on June 30. His last day will mark the end of a 42-year career in the fire service.

City officials announced Robert Lee Clemons, Jr. will succeed Bowman. And like Bowman before him, he’ll make the move from the Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue to Manassas.

Bowman came to Manassas in 2011 after working the previous 37 years for Prince William’s fire department. He was offered a job in the county fresh out of college.

Bowman, like many in the fire service, started as a volunteer firefighter in high school, in Manassas. He kept it up while attending James Madison University in Harrisonburg and achieved the rank of captain by his senior year.

The Harrisonburg fire department offered him a full-time job but Bowman chose to come home to Prince William.

“I loved the job… that’s why I did it all of these years,” explained Bowman. “No two days are exactly the same. You have some your routines, but when the alarm goes off you never know what to expect.”

The toughest day on the job was April 16, 2007, the day 24-year-old Prince William County firefighter Kyle Wilson became trapped inside burning house and died.

“That will forever be in my mind and his family in my heart for the rest of my life,” said Bowman.

Some of the best days are when those he’s treated during a medical emergency have come back to say “thank you” for saving their life, he added.

The fire service has changed a lot since he joined as a volunteer. When it comes to today’s home construction, they don’t build them like they used to.

“With the rapid spread of fire contents in the home, and way homes built today, if you have a fire in your home today, you only have three or four minutes to get out before the lethal products of combustion over take you,” said Bowman.

Twenty years ago, occupants had 17 to 18 minutes before a house became fully engulfed in flames, he said.

Bowman plans to spend about six months in Europe with his wife after retiring. She works for the U.S. State Department and will be assigned there temporarily.

When he’s stateside again, he plans to move into a newly-built home on North Carolina’s coast.

After Bowman was hired, the department had just created a new unified structure that included both paid career and volunteer members of the department. “When I got here there was turmoil, and we were able to change things to being more positive,” he said. 

He is credited with bringing all members of the unified department under one EMS license.

At the firehouse, he said he’ll miss the coffee, conversation, and camaraderie he shares with those in the fire and rescue service.  “The fire and rescue service truly is a brotherhood and a sisterhood. You have to deal with each other as much as you do with your immediate family,” said Bowman.