Milpitas Fire: Chief Clare Frank has accepted a job with the State of California.

Milpitas Fire department - Chief Clare Frank has accepted a job with the State of California.

"I've accepted a position with the state fire marshal's office," Frank said Tuesday, about a week after she tendered her resignation to City Manager Tom Williams.

Her new position of assistant chief, which she will begin the first week of March, comes under Cal-Fire operations. Her last day in Milpitas will be Feb. 13. Her office will be based in Sacramento but her work will allow her to refrain from moving from the South Bay, she said.

Frank, 43, rose within the ranks of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (the official name for Cal-Fire) starting in 1982, to be a division chief, before becoming Milpitas Fire Department's first woman chief in 2005.

Frank maintains her active bar status. She practiced law for five years in between working for the CDF.

According to Frank, her new state job will involve fire and related legal aspects. She said her position will include improving the cost recovery process in civil litigation cases. Frank said she will push for legislation strategies to prevent more mass home losses during large blazes that rage in wildland and urban interface settings.

"I get to have the heart of a firefighter and the head of a lawyer," Frank said of her next job. "My whole motivation is to have an opportunity to create change that could be lasting in order to save a lot of homes and a lot of lives."

City Manager Williams said Tuesday that he has yet to decide on an individual to lead the department short-term.
"We've started on the search," Williams said this week.

He added that he was looking first for an interim fire chief to lead the city's fire department, which is comprised of 80 authorized employees.

"In the long term we're going out for a more permanent position," Williams said.

More info:Facts about the Chief Clare Frank
Chief Frank began her fire service career in 1982. Starting as a firefighter, she promoted through the ranks, gaining experience in all aspects of fire and rescue operations, including emergency medical services, hazardous material responses, heavy and technical rescue operations, structure fires and wildland-urban-interface conflagrations. She also held specialized assignments in training, prevention, and administration. Chief Frank has served in line or command positions in many of the most notable major disasters that have befallen California during the past twenty-three years.

Chief Frank was valedictorian of her graduating class at the National Fire Academy’s Bachelors Degree program at Cogswell Polytechnic. She also graduated with honors from the Santa Clara University School of Law and is a member of the California Bar. Chief Frank is an instructor and a consultant on curriculum development for the National Fire Academy’s higher education program.