Sacramento Fire Chief Gary Loesch fired by city, vows ‘major litigation’ after exit
Gary Loesch has been fired as chief of the Sacramento Fire Department after more than three years leading the department.
Loesch said he was abruptly fired Thursday afternoon during a meeting at City Hall.
City spokesman Tim Swanson confirmed Loesch “is no longer an employee of the City of Sacramento,” but said the city will not comment further on an individual personnel matter.
Leyne Milstein, one of Sacramento’s assistant city managers, has been appointed interim fire chief “while the City conducts a national recruitment in the coming months,” Swanson wrote.
“I can verify that the city manager (Howard Chan) fired me yesterday,” Loesch, who joined the Sacramento Fire Department as its chief on Oct. 1, 2018, said in a phone interview Friday morning. “I was told to come to a meeting at 4 o’clock under the guise that I was to sit with (Milstein)” regarding EMS protocols.
“I walked in and was immediately terminated. With many reasons given.”
Loesch said the first of those reasons was “incompatibility of management style.”
He said he could not talk about the other reasons until he speaks with his attorneys later Friday morning.
“Obviously there’s gonna be major litigation here.”
Before joining the Sacramento Fire Department, Loesch was with the Philadelphia Fire Department from 1985 until 2018.
“I was escorted out of City Hall yesterday afterwards,” Loesch continued. “They took my car, my phone and my badge, and I am now a civilian, after 36½ years.
“There is a major piece that you will be shocked when you hear it, but I can’t release it until I talk to my attorneys, that led directly to my firing.”
