We Will Not Celebrate Mediocrity
How the Bartow Fire Department is Saving Lives and Changing the Community One Call at a Time
Photos by Jordan Randall
August 26, 2025 seemed like any other Tuesday morning for Bartow Fire Chief Jay Robinson.
He was in the process of finishing his normal morning routine for a day on shift at the station when suddenly a voice entered his head: You don’t want to go to work today.
Bartow Fire Department is steeped in rich history, dating back to its official formation in 1883.
This photo from the early years is in Fire Chief Jay Robinson’s office, as are dozens of other pieces of historical memorabilia.
Like everyone, he’s had his good days and his bad days on the job, but the 38-year Bartow Fire Department veteran had never felt quite like this. He texted his deputy chief Byron Moore that he was going to take the day off. His longtime colleague thought nothing of it.
Not long after, Jay was sitting on a couch in the family’s living room with his wife, Shelli, chatting with their daughter, Bailey.
“I heard my wife call my name, but there was no distress in her voice,” Robinson recalls. “And as soon as I turned, my wife from here up was purple.”
His first thought was that Shelli had a stroke and/or the episode could be related to health challenges she dealt with several years ago. But in reality she had suffered a catastrophic cardiac event.
His daughter quickly dialed 9-1-1, and what followed was a real-time demonstration of the Bartow Fire Department’s skill, urgency, and the deep, familial bond that defines it in its 142nd year of operation.
Chief Robinson immediately started performing CPR. When Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Schaill and the crew arrived, they seamlessly took over. They shocked her three times at the house and deployed a critical piece of equipment: the LUCAS device.
“I wholeheartedly believe that is what saved her life,” Chief Robinson stated. “You can’t do that with CPR in the back of an ambulance doing 80 miles an hour.”
In the midst of telling the story, Robinson quickly pivoted back to a moment that occurred soon after City Manager Mike Herr was hired to that position in early 2023.
“One of the first things he asked when he became city manager was, ‘How many LUCAS tools does the fire department have?’” Robinson says.
“And I always thought that it was very odd…but if it had not been for that moment,” he says, trailing off and pausing for a moment.
Miraculously, after spending 11 days in the intensive care unit and 23 days total at Bartow Regional Medical Center, Shelli was released, and she was recently given the thumbs up by her medical care team to return to work.
Jimmy Schaill, Deputy Fire Chief
Byron Moore, Deputy Fire Chief
Jay Robinson, Fire Chief
“There was divine intervention in my opinion,” Robinson says, pointing to the right people being in the right position to meet his wife’s needs. “The medic that was on the crew from the county had been in their training division for three years and just gone back on the street, and everybody I talked to said he’s the one you would want to have. And it was the crew at Bartow Regional, and our folks [at the fire department] were outstanding—I know what their skills are, but that’s not the easiest job in the world, to come to the chief’s house.”
This miraculous story of survival, born from a medical emergency at the chief’s home, underscores the department’s core philosophy as Chief Robinson puts it: “everything should have a sense of urgency to it...if at any point you drag around and don’t bring that urgency to the game….it’s those things that make the difference in the outcomes.”
Deep Roots and Friendly Rivalry
The bonds that bind the Bartow Fire Department run as deep as the city’s history itself. For Chief Jay Robinson, those roots stretch back to his childhood, growing up about six blocks from the downtown station.
He remembers a simpler time when he and his friends would ride their bikes to the station. “Back in the day, they’d leave the bay doors open... and we’d ride back there and air up our tires and get a drink outta the water fountain,” he recalled. “I ran to the corner every time the sirens went by.”
That early fascination turned into a career after a chance encounter with then-chief Tim Pitts at a controlled burn, an opportunity that came after a brief stint working for the city’s electric department. Robinson was initially reluctant, but Chief Pitts opened the door.
“The city sent me to school…and from day one, I’ve been in love with it ever since—one of the greatest things that ever happened in my life.”
Just ten years later, at age 30, he was promoted, becoming the youngest chief in the state at the time.
His Bartow High School roots—and those of his Deputy Chief Jimmy Schaill, a fellow Bartow Yellow Jacket—form a friendly divide with Deputy Chief Byron Moore, a self-proclaimed “transplant from the big town of Winter Haven” and a Blue Devil.
The trio brings to the table nearly 100 years of collective experience serving the community as fire rescue professionals out of the 59-year-old station located at 110 E. Church St.
“I was the Blue Devil one, and we’ve worked that out over the years,” Moore joked, the ribbing a sign of their mutual, decades-long respect.
Moore, who never intended to stay in Polk County long-term, came to Bartow on a whim for a part-time position and has never left. He was Robinson’s first promoted lieutenant, and their shared history is the foundation for the department’s cohesive leadership.
As Moore puts it, their decades of collaboration are built on trust:
“It was becoming friends with them and respecting them and them respecting me—that’s a big key part of it. And trust, if we wouldn’t have had all that, it wouldn’t have worked out this long, there’s no way.”
From 1883 to a Modern Response Force
The history of the department stretches back to 1883, when a group of men—Warren Tyler, John Jeffcott, H.W. Snell, and S.E. Reed—recognized the growing town’s need for a dedicated service. Over a century later, that legacy of service is evolving rapidly to meet the demands of a quickly expanding Polk County. Single family homes are being built in Bartow at a record pace, apartment complexes are opening and filling up with residents, and the Fire Department, the city and the county are diligently working to provide essential services to support that reality.
The department has long operated out of its main facility, the Ellis Gibson Fire Station 1 and covers a total of 56 square miles. For years, the department overcame challenges by doing “so much for so long on so little,” as Chief Robinson puts it, even putting together a volunteer rescue team to manage the high volume of vehicle accidents.
A pivotal moment in the department’s evolution occurred recently with the opening of Station 2 on the south side of town, a project that was deemed necessary by an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) more than 60 years ago. Now, with Station 2, located at 2475 Clower Ln., the average response time for that area has improved by almost 100 percent early on.
“That’s why we’ve done it. That’s the reason that it’s been so good,” Chief Robinson says, emphasizing the life-saving impact of cutting response times.
The department’s next major step is a creative, multi-million-dollar partnership with Polk County Fire Rescue for a new joint fire station on Smith Lane near U.S. 98. This station will serve north Bartow, Highland City and unincorporated Polk County. The City of Bartow is set to pay $5.2 million of the construction costs, while the county covers $7 million due to its need for additional EMS space.
The vision came together after Chief Robinson initiated a dialogue with Polk County Fire Rescue Chief Sean Smith about utilizing a facility the county was planning to close. This joint effort is designed to strategically reduce response times in the area, cutting what would have been a six-and-a-half minute response down to something much faster, which Robinson says “is what will make a difference, that’s what will save lives, that’s what will minimize property damage.”
Station 3 as it will be called by Bartow Fire Department is expected to open somewhere around the end of 2027.
The department is in the process of getting equipped for that next chapter. Current equipment will soon be augmented by four new vehicles—two engines and a new ladder in the first half of the year, with a fourth truck in the queue. They are also planning for significant staff expansion.
“[Currently,] we’re hiring three more [staff]... with this expansion, you know, we’re gonna need double what we have in the next five years,” Deputy Chief Moore anticipates.
“This fire department would not exist here without this community...the reason we were here is because of the community it is deep rooted here with the fire department, and we’ve got to respect that,”
Building a Culture That Lasts
The department’s ability to navigate such massive changes while maintaining operational excellence is deeply rooted in its culture. Deputy Chief Moore stresses that the department’s success is intrinsically tied to the community.
“This fire department would not exist here without this community...the reason we were here is because of the community—it is deep rooted here with the fire department, and we’ve got to respect that,” Moore says. “Bartow residents are our bosses. It’s not the commission, it’s not city managers…it’s our community.”
In terms of building a strong community within the ranks of the Fire Department, which currently has 24 staff on shift, Robinson says it requires understanding the stress of the job and creating an atmosphere where family genuinely comes first.
Deputy Chief Schaill explains how they try to instill the culture in the younger members:
“We try to keep it as a family base. Even though we’ve added an additional six or nine members, we still know everybody’s family...we tell everyone as they come in and interview, ‘This is like your home, we’re like family here and we all know each other.’”
And just like in many families, work colleagues should always expect the best from each other, especially with lives on the line. At the downtown station you can see a flag hanging that reads: “We will not celebrate mediocrity.”
“One of the guys came to me two or three years ago and said, ‘Hey, I bought something that maybe needs your approval to be put up at the station,’” Robinson says in reference to the flag. “And then he showed it to me and I said, ‘Absolutely. Where are we putting it? Because we need to put it where it will be seen every day.'”
For Robinson and his deputy chiefs it was a sign that staff are bought into what it means to be part of a historic fire department with a tight familial bond that is ready to lead the community safely into the future.
No matter whether the next run is to the home of a team member or someone who just moved to Bartow last week, every call is responded to with a sense of urgency and the mission of protecting life and property.
