Boydston Approaching Three Decades with BFD

Brent Boydston moved to Bentonville in 1975 when he was 9 years old, and it’s oftentimes difficult for him to describe to newcomers just how much the town has evolved.

“When we were kids, we’d just walk across town to each others’ houses,” said Boydston, now the fire chief for the Bentonville Fire Department. “It’s hard to explain. But the [example] I use the most is that we used to have just one blinking light, and that was at the corner of Central and Walton when [Walton] was just a two-lane road.”

But even as the landscape has changed and the years have passed, Boydston’s presence with the BFD has remained a constant. He has been a mainstay there for almost three decades, and he says the passion for the job still runs hot.

“It’s a rewarding job; you’re helping people in their time of need,” he said recently during a sit-down at his office inside the award-winning Station No. 1. “And nothing is ever the same. It’s different every day.”

Boydston was the department’s assistant fire chief when he was recognized in the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 2002.

By then, he already was considered a staple of the department. He started as a part-timer almost immediately after graduating from Bentonville High School in 1984, and rose through the ranks, holding titles of firefighter and shift paramedic, lieutenant, division chief and fire marshal before being promoted to assistant fire chief in 2001.

He became the department’s interim fire chief earlier this year, when Dan White announced his retirement.

The interim tag will be removed as soon his old post can be filled. It’s a position Boydston has strived for, recalling one other time early in his career when he was pursued by another city to become its assistant fire chief.

He said the phone call was short.

“I have known for a while this was a job I wanted, and the place where I wanted to end my career,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for a better place, or a better administration. It’s a great place.”

As fire chief, Boydston is responsible for 65 full-timers and 10 part-timers, spread out among the city’s five stations and covering 31 square miles for fire calls and 144 square miles for emergency medical/ambulance calls.

Boydston credits Larry Horton — the battalion chief for the department’s “C Shift” — for prompting him to pursue the career he loves.

And although there was no previous history of firefighting in Boydston’s family, his older brother, Kevin Boydston, is also a member of the BFD, serving as the battalion chief for “B Shift.”

Boydston pointed to three department highlights in the last decade — the opening of Station No. 5 on Elm Tree Road in 2005, achieving an Insurance Services Office rating of Class 2 in 2006, and the opening of Station No. 1 in 2008.

The approximately 30,000-SF building includes six engine bays and a wash bay, 15 bunkrooms, a large day room, stainless steel kitchen with a separate dining room, an 1,800-SF training room, exercise room, lobby museum and administrative offices.

 The building at the corner of Southwest A and Eighth streets has been recognized among the best in the country, earning the 2008 Station Styles Gold Medal in the Career Stations category as presented in the November 2008 issue of Fire Chief magazine. 

Bentonville’s previous central fire station was about 9,000 SF.

“I wish you could’ve seen where we came from to where we are now,” Boydston said.

The BFD is also the only department in the state, Boydston said, to utilize the Amkus Ultimate system, a hydraulic rescue system that allows for the operation of six hydraulic rescue tools (Jaws of Life) at the same time.

Boydston said keeping up with the area’s growth will be the department’s main challenge in the coming years. Adding another substation in the developing southwest part of town is an immediate goal.

Boydston says time away from the firehouse is best spent with his wife of 23 years, Kim, and their two children.

Hannah, 14, is a freshman at Bentonville High School. Hunter, 18, is a freshman baseball player at Central Baptist College in Conway.

“He is excited to be playing baseball and we are excited to go down and watch him,” Boydston said.