Words by Anna Lee Vaughn | Images by Ryan McGill
Adrean Booth grew up in the small Blount County community of Smokerise.
Like many young people, she was unsure which career path to follow when she first enrolled at Jefferson State Community College.
However, she soon discovered her calling unexpectedly.
“One day, I experienced a God wink. I was 19 years old and driving down a road I didn’t normally take. I went by the old fire station in Hayden and saw they were having an open house,” she recalls. “So, I went in, looked around, and ended up filling out an application. Within a couple of weeks, I knew this was what I wanted to do forever.”
Adrean began volunteering with the West Blount Fire Department, working her way up from rookie to captain, and eventually to assistant chief.
She fell in love with the work and, after several years, sought a new challenge. Transferring to the City of Graysville, she returned to fire college to earn additional certifications and pursued a nursing degree to have a full-time career while still serving as a firefighter.
For years, Adrean balanced her duties at the Graysville Fire Department with her job as a nurse at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery.
Despite her commitment to nursing, her true passion lay in fire service. She returned to full-time fire service as a training specialist with a fire college, traveling the country to teach courses on investigation and inspection and working with recruits.
Adrean’s first opportunity to become a fire chief came in the small town of Bangor, Alabama, home of the famous Bangor Cave.
She served as the volunteer fire chief for ten years while continuing her nursing career. Eventually, she transferred to Dora Fire and Rescue, working part-time while still nursing.
“I loved the fire service and didn’t want to leave it. So, I came here to Dora and worked for a few years before they approached me about taking the chief’s position and driving the department toward a more career-oriented model,” Adrean explains.
For the past year, Adrean has been working toward this goal.
As fire chief, she aims to build the department to accommodate more full-time employees while maintaining support for volunteers. Over 70% of the state is covered strictly by volunteer departments.
“I started as a volunteer, and my heart belongs to volunteer firefighters. Being able to serve as fire chief allows me to support our local volunteer firefighters in a larger setting,” Adrean says. “There is a job for everybody in the fire service. We have a brotherhood, a loyalty, and that loyalty is what drives me and keeps me coming back every day.” WL
