Deputy Chief William Perritt, of the Hartsdale Fire Department, was honored for his lifelong dedication to the fire service by fellow firefighters, family and friends as he walked out of HFD Station 1 for the last time, finishing his twenty-one-year career with the department in Hartsdale, NY on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.

In a firefighting career that spanned twenty-three years, DC Perritt started with the Scarsdale Fire Department where he served for almost two years. He joined HFD in January 2004 and in 2011 was promoted to Captain. Three years later he was promoted to Deputy Chief.

Teaching was DC Perritt’s passion and he served as the Municipal Training Officer for HFD. Fellow firefighters described him as having a tremendous wealth of knowledge that he loved to share with other members of the department who said, “he knew buildings inside and out.” He was also described as a mentor to his fellow officers.

DC Perritt was always thinking ahead and training fellow firefighters. He loved talking about garden apartments in terms of strategy and tactics on how to approach a fire in that type of structure.

Always teaching, another subject he talked about was comparing suburban (such as Hartsdale, NY) firefighting tactics to that of urban (New York City) firefighting tactics and how they were different, the main difference being manpower. In an urban firefighting situation, you could have four times the number of firefighters responding. DC Perritt taught his fellow firefighters how to do efficient firefighting in a suburban community, with limited staffing. It was important to him that they understood how to prioritize what needed to be done in a rapidly changing situation.

Besides his time at HFD, DC Perritt was an instructor at the Westchester County Fire Training Center and served twenty years as a volunteer with the Pleasantville, NY Fire Department.

Three words that will always be associated with DC Perritt are “see smoke-stretch” in reference to always being prepared and not wait until you see fire before stretching a hose line. These words will now be immortalized, joining a collection of other famous quotes from former fighters, on the steps leading up to the second floor of Station 1.

The Hartsdale Fire District thanks Deputy Chief Perritt for his more than twenty-one years of service to the community and wishes him the best of luck as he joins the New Canaan, CT Fire Department as Assistant Chief and Training Officer. Photos by Alan Zale