ADRIAN — It would be entirely fair to say that firefighting is in AJ Armstrong’s blood.

Armstrong, a longtime firefighter who was named the Adrian Fire Department’s new chief on March 2 to succeed retired chief Aric Massingill, grew up around the Cambridge Township Fire Department thanks to his dad, a township firefighter since 1978 who is now that department’s assistant chief.

“I would skip lunch to go hang out at the fire department,” said Armstrong, who grew up in Onsted, graduated from Onsted High School, and still lives in the village with his wife, Brooke — a first-grade teacher in Onsted — and their four sons, ages eight, seven, four, and seven months.

And he and his dad aren’t even the only firefighters in the family. His father-in-law is the Cambridge Township fire chief, and brothers-in-law on both his and his wife’s side of the family are lieutenants in the Pittsfield Township fire department.

Still, it’s true that as a boy Armstrong had other dreams for what he’d do with his life. When he was 10 or 11 years old, his goal was to be a professional athlete, whether it be football, baseball, or perhaps basketball. But if none of that worked out for him, he would be a firefighter.

As it turned out, those pro sports didn’t come calling — although he did take on a couple of completely different sports early on. One of them was bull riding.

“I had an uncle who rode bulls,” he said, and one day he asked his uncle for help getting into that sport. “He said, ‘does your mom know?’ I said, ‘no,’ and he said, “well, okay.”

When his mother found out, “she wasn’t surprised, but she wasn’t thrilled,” he said. “She knew I was going to do it regardless.”

He also was a competitive snowmobile racer for a while.

But firefighting was his true calling from an early age. He became a firefighter cadet at age 16, got trained as a firefighter and EMT and then as a paramedic, and joined the AFD in 2010.

Eleven months later, he got laid off. But he was later able to return to the department and over the years rose through the ranks, earning promotions to lieutenant in 2017 and to captain in 2021.

Additionally, in 2013 he became team leader for the county’s hazmat team and in 2021 he was named team leader for the county Technical Rescue Team, which specializes in rescues in high-angle, trench, confined-space, and collapsed-structure situations. 

He served as acting chief after Massingill’s retirement.

Over the years, Armstrong has seen his share of dramatic incidents, ranging from a couple of “interesting” hazmat calls involving tankers hauling chemicals, to a train derailment, to the major fire last year involving multiple downtown Adrian buildings. And during his time as a captain, the department handled three fatal fires.

The vast majority of the calls the AFD gets in a given year are ambulance calls. The department also handles its share of vehicle crashes, calls for wires or trees down, fire alarms, “and a lot of other random things,” Armstrong said. 

Fires account for perhaps 15 to 20 calls per year. The AFD also provides mutual aid for neighboring communities’ fire departments.

Now that he’s chief, Armstrong of course won’t be responding to calls unless they’re for major incidents.

“As a captain, it was my responsibility to make sure my shift and I were providing the highest level of service possible to our citizens,” he said. “Now, as chief, my job isn’t to provide service, it is to ensure the crews have everything they need to provide that service.”

Firefighting is a job where “you never know what you could be expected to deal with,” he added. 

“But we have some of the best firefighters in the county, and I am confident we could handle any emergency that comes our way.”