Shavano Park Fire Chief Darrell Dover reported to a fire in September after saying he had been drinking and could not respond to a call for off-duty personnel to assist, according to a KSAT investigation.
ROBERT MCLEROY/SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Shavano Park fire chief responded to a blaze after saying he had been drinking and couldn’t do so
Published: Mon, 12/11/23
Shavano Park fire chief responded to a blaze after saying he had been drinking and couldn’t do so
Shavano Park Fire Chief Darrell Dover reported to a fire in September after saying he had been drinking and could not respond to a call for off-duty personnel to assist, according to a KSAT investigation.
ROBERT MCLEROY/SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
San Antonio Express-News
By Gabriella Ybarra, Staff writer
The Shavano Park fire chief reported to the scene of a fire after telling a captain that he had been drinking, according to an investigation by KSAT.
On Sept. 2, Fire Chief Darrell Dover sent a text to a captain at 9 p.m. saying he couldn’t go to work because he had consumed alcohol, according to internal records obtained by KSAT.
The text was in response to an alert issued by the fire department asking off-duty fire personnel to backfill as the station was responding to a fire at an apartment complex in the 24200 block of Wilderness Oak.
Less than an hour later, Dover arrived at the scene of the fire in his city-issued vehicle and took partial command of the fire scene, according to KSAT. Dover also serves as the city’s chief of emergency medical services and as its fire marshal.
Last month, Dover told the Shavano Park City Council that he was put in charge of monitoring crews but that none of the crews were in the apartment responding to the fire while he was at the scene, according to the TV station.
Dover stayed at the scene until the fire was extinguished at 2 a.m. and then returned home. He told the City Council that he was not intoxicated or impaired.
In a Sept. 6 memo to City Manager Bill Hill obtained by KSAT, Dover wrote that he had consumed “3-4 beers” earlier that day and that more than five hours had passed since consuming his last beer.
Dover wrote that he had self-assessed his condition before heading to the fire and felt he was not under the influence of alcohol or impaired.
Records obtained by the TV station showed that Fire Captain Tom Grose confronted Dover about the email and his decision to report to the fire.
“It’s been eating me up that you made this decision and my biggest problem is you’ve put me in a position where I have to confront my chief. If this were to come out some other way I would be just as culpable for doing nothing with what I know,” Grose said.
Hill issued Dover developmental counseling on Sept. 7 and told Dover that he had showed “poor judgement” in his decision, according to KSAT.