North Beach VFD Chief Thomas C. Mills will receive the Firefighter Hero Award from the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) and MAGLITE®.

Chief Mills will be honored for his leadership in response to a tragic fire that took the lives of 2 civilians and nearly killed several firefighters. Chief Mills personally led the effort to ensure the incident and the lessons learned were shared with local response partners as well as the fire service at large and worked alongside local government leaders to assist the community in its recovery.

“Chief Mills is a highly motivated leader of our department and on a daily basis he is a strong supportive presence within the community”, Said Deputy Chief Stephen Stanton. “Mills’ leads through innovative actions, constant dedication, and a genuine care for the personnel of our department and the fire service as a whole.”

“We are forever grateful for the leadership of Chief Mills, and the dedication he has for sharing our lessons learned”. “We appreciate MAGLITE and the NFFF for the honor and recognition of our Chief”- Stanton said.

“Although it is always tragic when people are injured or killed in a horrific fire like this it is important to recognize the heroism of those who battled the blaze and have used it to learn from and prepare for future incidents like Chief Mills,” said Anthony Maglica, Founder and CEO of Mag Instrument Inc. “This is why we are committed to supporting this program and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. I am very happy to honor these true heroes with this award and a donation to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation in their name which will be permanently displayed on a brick at the National Fallen Firefighters Walk of Honor.”

The award presentation on February 27th at 7:00 p.m. at the NBVFD…