ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. -- Guy Chastain now traverses hallways, offices and test facilities throughout Arnold Air Force Base to ensure safeguards designed to keep base personnel out of serious and potentially life-threatening situations are working as they should.
In mid-January, Chastain took on the role of fire inspector for the Arnold Air Force Base Fire and Emergency Services Fire Prevention Office.
A native of Florida, Chastain served 20 years active duty as an Air Force firefighter. Upon his retirement, he began a career in fire prevention with the Department of Defense. Stints during his civilian career have included four years as assistant chief of fire prevention at Fort Lee, a U.S. Army installation in Virginia; six years as assistant chief of fire prevention at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, now a U.S. Space Force installation, in Colorado; and four years as a fire inspector at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.
Chastain recently retired from the DOD after a more-than-14-year career with the department.
In the early 2000s, Chastain also worked as an Air Force recruiter. During that time, he was stationed in Murfreesboro and resided in Manchester. Eventually, he’d get the chance to return to this area – one Chastain and his family had grown quite fond of during his time as a recruiter – while taking the latest step in his fire prevention career.
“We just kind of fell in love with middle Tennessee, so we knew that when I retired, we wanted to move back to the area,” Chastain said. “This fire inspector position came open, and it was a great opportunity for us to make that transition back to middle Tennessee.”
Chastain’s role at Arnold entails inspecting each of the facilities on base and noting any life safety or fire safety issues to ensure code compliance. He is also responsible for the fire extinguisher program on base. This involves checking all fire extinguishers within a facility during an inspection to verify the devices have been tested and received any required maintenance.
He is also involved in ensuring fire alarm systems are operational and that sprinkler systems, which help buy time for occupants to escape from a building in the event of an emergency, are functioning properly.
“We all want to go home at the end of the day,” Chastain said. “Even though I’m a fire inspector, life safety is my first priority, to make sure people can get out of the building safely in event of emergency.”
Chastain also wants to help see to it that personnel across Arnold are following general safety practices to help prevent fires.
“The best thing we can do is prevent an emergency from happening in the first place,” Chastain said. “That’s the best way to save lives and protect people.”
Since taking on his new post, Chastain has taken the time to familiarize himself with the facilities across Arnold. Although he visited the base when he worked as a recruiter, Chastain saw only a small portion of the installation during those stops.
“Unlike most Air Force bases where you have a lot of business occupancies, here you have some really large industrial-type occupancies that are very unique, so it’s been quite a challenge to get acclimated to that,” he said. “I’ve dealt with some industrial before, like when I was at Cheyenne Mountain out in Colorado, but this is on a much larger scale here at Arnold.”
Chastain said members of the Arnold FES crew are at the ready to lend a hand and have been very supportive of his efforts thus far.
“We have very good rapport here at Arnold,” he said. “Everybody’s been very supportive of me and our office and what we do. They’ve been very helpful, so it’s been great.”
Although he’s only been on the job a few months, Chastain has already noted ways fire safety can be improved at Arnold. Atop this list is the proper usage of multi-outlet power strips. He said high-wattage appliances should not be plugged into these power strips.
“Everybody’s very familiar with them,” Chastain said. “Most people have them in their homes or wherever, but they need to understand multi-outlet strips are designed to be used with computers and things that are low-power load appliances. They’re not meant for things such as refrigerators, microwaves, coffee pots, and that’s where we find a lot of the misuse. And it’s not unique to Arnold. This has been everywhere that I’ve worked at before in fire prevention. You find this often.”
Another observation Chastain has made is the installation of unauthorized locks on some doors.
“I’ve seen a little bit of that in the buildings that I’ve been through so far – people applying additional locks to a door,” he said. “The general rule of thumb, with very few exceptions in the Life Safety Code, is when I go to get out of the building…I should be able to open that door with a single motion such as turning a doorknob or pressing on the panic bar hardware. I shouldn’t have to turn a deadbolt or slide a lock or whatever. That would be two motions.”
Chastain said those who find additional locks on doors can bring it to the attention of Arnold Fire Prevention officials by contacting the office. Fire prevention personnel can check on whether an exception may apply. Those looking to enhance security in their areas through the installation of extra locks are also asked to contact the Fire Prevention office before submitting a work order.
“It’s a lot cheaper to help them come up with a code-compliant solution first versus us coming through later, finding something that was installed that shouldn’t be there, and then having to request them to have it removed and repair the door,” Chastain said.
The Arnold AFB Fire Prevention Office can be reached at 931-454-5306 or 931-454-5569.