East Lyme ― Former Niantic Fire Department Chief John MacDonald is back in charge.

MacDonald was elected as the volunteer chief by department membership this week, returning after a six-year stint at the helm that ended in 2016. A veteran of the independent fire company for 50 years, he also serves as a part-time paid firefighter there.

MacDonald started as a junior firefighter after he moved to town with his family in 1968 upon his father’s retirement from the Hartford Fire Department. The family legacy also includes his grandfather, who he said was the first officer to respond to the Hartford Circus Fire in 1944.

Previous Niantic Fire Department Chief Jim Barone did not run for reelection.

MacDonald, 68, retired from the Naval Submarine Base New London Fire Department in 2008 as an assistant fire chief.

More recently, he said he’d been looking for something more to do with his days.

“And then when Jim (Barone) declined the position, I decided, well, I’d try it again,” he said.

MacDonald said he stepped back from the role of chief in 2016 because member Stephen Wargo wanted a chance.

Wargo ended up resigning in 2018, several months before his arrest on first-degree larceny charges. Police alleged he collected money for shifts he did not work while he was serving both as a volunteer chief and a paid, part-time firefighter for the department. He was granted a special form of probation by a New London Superior Court judge and the charges were ultimately dismissed.

John Dwyer stepped up as the next chief and Barone followed.

Now, MacDonald will oversee a fire company he said consists of five full-time paid firefighters, six part-time paid firefighters and “a few volunteers.”

He did not specify the number of volunteers but said numbers “are dwindling.”

He said discussions about how to fund additional firefighters and recruit more volunteers are ongoing in town.

The Niantic department and the Flanders Fire Department operate separately from the town, and their volunteer chiefs do not report to the town. However, paid firefighters report to the first selectman.

Former First Selectman Mark Nickerson had advocated for the hiring of a fire administrator who would be accountable to the Board of Selectmen and provide oversight for the two volunteer fire chiefs.

Another possibility cited in a $15,000, 272-page fire department study prepared for the town by JLN Associates of Old Lyme in 2017 was the hiring of a "full-time career fire chief" who would oversee both fire departments, emergency medical services, the fire marshal's office and emergency management.

MacDonald welcomed conversation on ideas like those.

“That way there, it would be a lot easier for the full-time firefighters,” he said. “There’s a lot of ways to do it, but we just have to see what the town wants.”

e.regan@theday.com