Being a firefighter is like being in a family.

And firefighting has been in new Orange Beach Fire Chief Shane Phillips' family all of his life.

"I grew up in a fire station," he said. "I was in explorer post. I started that in 1989 in Hoover. I had a feel for it. It took a hold of me and wouldn't let go as a true desire for the whole career. What drew me to the fire service was excitement, the tradition."

When a personal tragedy hit Phillips in his early teens, he remembers that extended family stepping in to help. His best friend, his mom Suzanne, died of a heart attack when he was 15.

"Totally unexpected," he said."But it also really capitalized on my thoughts of how it is a family because when my mom died and my dad worked shift work, and he had a part-time job, I never went without. Those firemen took care of me from A to Z. There was nothing I went without. I was never alone. I never had a situation were there was someone I just couldn't talk to. I had somebody that always listened."

Phillips comes to Orange Beach from Seneca, S.C., where he spent nearly six years there as fire chief. Other positions before Seneca including a stint as fire chief McNairy County, Tenn., fire chief at Harpersville, Ala., and firefighter at Vestavia Hills near Birmingham. He is replacing Chief Forney Howard who is retiring after a stellar career.

Phillips family includes wife, Lynne, and daughters Makayla, 5, and Sydney, 3.

From the first class he took on firefighting, Phillips knew what he wanted to do.

"As I progressed through my career, I knew what I wanted to do," he said. "I wanted to be a chief. I started going to college working on my associate's degree in fire science. I've got an associate's degree in emergency medicine and my batchelor's is actually through Columbia Southern right here in fire science."

Right out of high school, Phillips stepped into another classroom to begin working toward a job in the fire service.

"When I graduated high school in '93, I went Destin for senior week, came back and started paramedic school," he said. "Immediately out of high school, I went to get my to get my paramedic license, I went to UAB, transferred to Shelton State to the fire college to get my medic. That goes hand and hand with the fire service because you know in Birmingham market you've just about got to be a paramedic to get hired anywhere.

"I've been a paramedic since 1995. It gave me an opportunity working in Vestavia, to have that kind of, I don't want to say big city, but more of a metropolitian feel or suburban feel."

During his nine years at Vestavia, he also took on the job of fire chief in Harpersville.

"I got my first chief's job in Harpersville in 2001," he said. "Great experience. I wouldn't trade those days for anything. I was the first paid chief there and had the first paid staff on that side of the county."

But working so many hours and preparing to marry his long-time girlfriend, Phillips began looking for another job that demanded less time.

"It just got to where, for me personally, my schedule was working 24 on, 48 off at Vestavia and then on my off days, I had to make my days at Harpersville," he said. "So i was always at a fire station somewhere. And I was at the point that me and my wife were looking to get married. We knew we were going in that direction and I knew that would be challenging for a newlywed to be working all the time. Prayed about it, studied on it and the very first place I found with a chief's opening was McNairy County, Tenn."

Land of the legendary sheriff, Buford Pusser. In fact, the famous lawman's office is still maintained as it looked when he served even though he has been dead since the 1970s.

"My office was right across from his," Phillips said, noting his dad, Jim Phillips, was a big fan of the movie about Pusser, "Walking Tall."

Almost two years into that job, a boss he greatly admire, County Mayor Mike Smith, was replaced by a boss who wanted to cut funding.

"I loved that job there," he said. "I don't know if I would have ever truly left there because I had a good boss there that hired me. He would be the equivilant of what you and I know as an Andy Griffith."

When Smith took a new job with United Way and a new county mayor came on, things changed for Phillips.

"The first time I met him as my new boss, he cut my budget," he said. "I could kind of read between the lines. He really wasn't into the  public safety realm and the vision Mike Smith had."

From there, it was on to Seneca, in the extreme Northwest corner of South Carolina.

"We really like Seneca," Phillips said. "That is a beautiful area. Climate wise, there's all kind of stuff to do. You are four hours from anything and everything. The beach, the mountains."

But he always had Orange Beach in the back of his mind.

"When this came open, I just felt led to it," he said. "Through my whole career, and i even joked with [Howard) when he got the chief's job, that whenever he decided to hang it up one day, I was going to apply. This has been a blessing for me. This is where I've always wanted to be."

But being a firefighter in Seneca is different from being a firefighter in Orange Beach.

"From Senenca, the demographics are totally different," Phillips said. "The department size, the profile is just about the same. We had a lot of poverty in certain parts of town. And in some parts of town you had multi-million dollar homes. A lot of industry.

"We had a lot more fire volume up there. You had old mill villages. When industry started moving out and textiles started moving out of that area, it left people there without jobs, it left empty warehouses, century-old warehouses. In some parts of town we had a lot of drug problems. While we were there we created the first arson division and in five years he had eight arson-related arrests.'

Orange Beach presents a different set of challenges.

"The challenges here are obviously the high rises," he said. "I'm definitely going to lean on our guys for are things like surf rescue. I've never lived on a coast before."

Phillips expects there to be a trading of knowledge of what his experience brings and what he can learn from his crew about Orange Beach.

"I think that presents a good opportunity for us to trade off information," he said. "There's a world outside Orange Beach, some of them already know that, but I want to expose that. But at the same time I know that everywhere I've been is nothing like Orange Beach. I'm excited for that opportunity to learn what this place has to offer."

As young leader — Phillips first became a chief at age 26 — he has also faced extra scrutiny.

"When i went to Seneca, I had guys that had 28 years in and I had a couple of them let me know real quick they were old enough to be my dad," he said. "Your peers, number one, look at you a little differently in these meetings. They look like your grandfather sitting in there and your sitting in there as young whippersnapper. Even here, obviously, there's guys here older."

Being the "whippersnapper" of the group helped Phillips stay prepared.

"It makes you stay sharp," he said. "There's no question it makes you accountable. And you learn that when you speak, you better do your homework, because somebody has been there and done that."

Phillips takes over for one who "has been there and done that" in the well-respected and well-loved Forney Howard.

"Chief Howard's so connected in this state," Phillips said. "It has been very smooth. To watch him go the last two weeks and people just hug his neck in tears, shaking his hand. It leaves big shoes to fill, but it's stuff I already knew. I never had a real personal relationship with Chief Howard when he was in Birmingham, but he was always one of those legends you heard of. And to be able to really see that come to life, and to see him go out on top, has been phenomenal.

"That's how I want to go out."