Familiar face up for fire chief

Following interviews in April that resulted in a renewed and somewhat altered search for a new leader, Cloquet Area Fire District board members interviewed two new fire chief/CEO candidates on Wednesday.

One of them, Brian Fritsinger, is familiar to Cloquet residents, as he led the city for nearly two decades as city administrator before taking a job as deputy county administrator in neighboring St. Louis County in 2017.

Candidate George Esbensen currently works as the director of sales and marketing for a company in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. He was fire chief and director of emergency preparedness in Eden Prairie, Minnesota for 16 years before that.

Current CAFD chief Kevin Schroeder is retiring in June, and the fire district board was hoping that the veteran leader could work with the new fire chief for four to six weeks.

Previously, CAFD board chairman Jim Langenbrunner — a former (and the first) CAFD fire chief — said the key difficulty in finding someone to lead CAFD is the nature of the fire district. “It is the only one in the state,” Langenbrunner said. “The district runs like a small city; it covers close to 22,000 people. Most fire chiefs are responsible for a fire department in a city. This is a regional approach, so it is an administrative position.”

Langenbrunner said Wednesday the selection committee will meet Friday morning to discuss the interviews. If the committee has a recommendation, it will go to a vote at a special board meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, June 1.

Made up of the member communities of Cloquet, Scanlon, Perch Lake and Brevator, CAFD also provides structural fire protection under contract to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The total area covered by the fire district spans 170 square miles. CAFD also provides ambulance service to a state-mandated area of more than 250 square miles in Carlton County and southern St. Louis County. CAFD was the first fire district in the state, and has been a leader since its inception in 2009.