James Schwartz

Fire Chief
Arlington County Fire Department


James Schwartz was named Fire Chief for Arlington County Fire Department in June of 2004.  Chief Schwartz has been with Arlington for 22 years and has served a variety of fire department positions before becoming Fire Chief.  Among those assignments he served as the Assistant Chief of Operations, overseeing all response-related activities, including fire, EMS, hazardous materials and technical rescue response, incident management and operational training.

In April 2003, he was assigned to the Office of the County Manager where he served as the Director of Emergency Management until his appointment to Fire Chief.

The Arlington County Fire Department consists of 315 personnel that provide fire, EMS, hazardous materials and technical rescue response to a community of 198,000 residents in an area of 26 square miles. The department was the lead agency for the response to the September 11 attack at the Pentagon.  Chief Schwartz was the Incident Commander for the Pentagon incident.

Chief Schwartz chairs the sustainment committee for Arlington County’s Metropolitan Medical Response System, a federally funded program that focuses on the integration of a community’s response capabilities for a terrorism event. 

While Operations Chief for the Fire Department, he was also the Program Manager for the Washington Area National Medical Response Team, which consists of area Hazmat, EMS, and law enforcement personnel trained to respond to acts of terrorism. 

Chief Schwartz is a member of the Interagency Board on Equipment Standardization, which is developing a common suite of terrorism response equipment for the nation’s first responders.  He is also a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Committee on Terrorism and Homeland Security.

Chief Schwartz graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor’s degree in Fire Administration.