Groton — Groton City Fire Chief Nick DeLia got into this line of work to help people, and he's been lucky enough to save lives over the years.

DeLia, who will retire on July 1 after 21 years as chief, recalled one particular incident decades ago, when he was at the Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department in the 1980s teaching children about fire safety.

He spoke to a group of kindergarteners and explained that they must feel a door to see if it’s hot before opening it. 

The next day, one of the children’s homes caught fire.

The girl was in a bedroom with her mother, and her mother wanted to open the door to get out. The child felt the door, realized it was hot, and blocked it with her body, telling her mother, “No, Mommy! No.”

Firefighters arrived at about the same time. “We were able to grab them and get them outside,” he said. “It was a great day, a great day. Those are the things you remember.”

DeLia joined the Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department in 1979 and served as shift commander for seven years, working under three fire chiefs. He became fire chief in Groton City in 1997.  DeLia also is  an instructor at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md., and a senior fire service consultant for JLN Associates in Old Lyme, both of which he'll continue after retirement.

He grew up in Groton City and had firefighters all around him. His friend was a firefighter with the Cohanzie Fire Department in Waterford, a neighbor who lived behind DeLia served as a firefighter in Groton City, and the man who delivered oil was an officer with the Pioneer Hose Company No. 1, housed at the city fire station.

“I would come out and hang out with those guys and just learn,” DeLia said. “I was either here or at school or working. I fell in love with the business.”

At age 18, he began volunteering with Cohanzie and the Pioneer Hose company. After receiving medical training, he volunteered for Groton Ambulance.

DeLia earned an associate degree at what's now Three Rivers Community College and planned to become a physician assistant and attend the University of Connecticut.

But Dan Keogh, a firefighter with Poquonnock Bridge, recruited him to join the department. Keogh would later become DeLia’s lieutenant and then chief of the department. Most of Keogh’s former firefighters went on to become officers or fire marshals, DeLia said.

In the 1980s under then Poquonnock Bridge Chief Robert Burdick, the department sent firefighters to schools across the district to teach young children about fire safety. In 1984, DeLia was named Connecticut Firefighters Association Firefighter of the Year. The same year, he was honored with the 1984-85 Educator of the Year award by the Southeastern Connecticut Association for the Education of the Young Child.

Yet, he recalls some losses, too. Firefighters were unable to save a couple after a space heater ignited a stack of newspapers. The couple had a smoke detector but left it on a table about waist high instead of installing it on the ceiling.

“We pulled them out, and we tried to resuscitate them,” DeLia said. One was pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital and the other died the same night. “It was upsetting, because they had the right (equipment), they just didn’t have it in the right place.”

He also recalled at least one close call. DeLia suffered minor burns over the years before protective gear was as effective as it is today.

He emerged from one fire with his coat smoking. There was a miscommunication, and he and a fellow firefighter were battling a blaze inside a structure, while another group fought it from the opposite end. The water pressure from the other group pushed heat toward DeLia and his fellow firefighter, and they had to get out.

“So we did, head first out the window and onto a porch,” he said.

As chief, he has a job that today is more about planning and supporting firefighters, something he learned from former Poquonnock Bridge Chief Edward Amatrudo.

He was among those involved in creation of the Connecticut Eastern Regional Response Integrated Team, which responds to hazardous materials incidents, and the Connecticut Incident Management Team No. 4, which supports commanders during large incidents.

Firefighting has changed since he started in the field. “In the old days, you just went after the fire and if you got hurt, you got hurt. If someone died, they died. It was just inevitable,” he said.

Now departments use what’s called a risk-benefit profile, he said. They’ll "risk a lot to save a lot," or to save someone’s life, he said. They’ll "risk little to save little," such as a vacant building.

They’ll risk nothing to save nothing. “That means that if we pull up and the building is going from stem to stern and it’s just going to get knocked down tomorrow, we’re not going inside,” he said.

That can be a difficult decision, he said. “That’s against our genes,” he said. “That’s against our DNA.”

Other risks are more difficult to avoid. Firefighters are at high risk of developing several different cancers due to exposure to toxins released when material burns. DeLia has three close friends who have battled cancer in the last five years.

Today, Groton City has extractors to remove chemicals from firefighters' gear after they return from a fire, and an extra set of gear in case they need to go back out, DeLia said.

He said he’s had community support to protect his firefighters to the extent he can. “I’m lucky. I’m surrounded by great people, not only that work for me but the leadership in the city and a great community,” he said.

His department firefighters can hold their own alongside those in any large fire department, he said.

“I will take any one of my line firefighters and put them up against an (fire) officer from New Haven or wherever, because that officer has to worry about one thing,” he said. “And our guys and gals, they have to do three things at once."

d.straszheim@theday.com