LIVERMORE FALLS — Town Manager Amanda Allen said Thursday that she hired Mike Booker of Jay as the new chief of Livermore Falls Fire Rescue Department. He will start his duties Thursday.

Booker is also chief of the Jay Fire Rescue Department and will lead the two departments separately.

It is not a collaboration, Allen said.

Booker will receive a $7,500 annual stipend as chief of the Livermore Falls department. He will also get $18.75 an hour per call for the on-call department.

Former Fire Rescue Chief Edward Hastings IV resigned in June to return to being a state fire investigator. Selectmen appointed Deputy Chief Scott Shink as interim chief.

Booker is paid $25,000 a year as Jay chief to be on call weekdays for emergency calls about 170 days a year, and handles extra duties due to a staff shortage. He gets no hourly stipend for calls.

He has been a firefighter for 26 years. He started when he was 14 as a junior firefighter with the Jay department. When he turned 18 he became a regular firefighter with the department and in 2006 was promoted to captain.

Four years later he was named the assistant fire chief under the late Jay Police and Fire Chief Larry White Sr. After White, who had pancreatic cancer, died in October 2014, Booker was named fire rescue chief.

Booker, who remained Jay chief, also took on duties at the Buckfield Fire Department in 2018 and became the assistant chief working per diem shortly after. He cross-trained in duties, which allowed him to respond with the Fire Department for fire calls and with the Rescue Departments for medical emergencies. After a year, he was promoted to deputy chief and assisted with daily operations, he said.

In about March 2020, he was hired as a full-time firefighter/driver for the Mexico Fire Department, while he continued his duties in Jay and Buckfield. Last year, he was promoted to lieutenant for the Mexico department, working three days on and six days off.

When he changed his duties in Jay to handle weekday emergency calls, he resigned from the Buckfield Fire and Rescue departments.

“I’m excited,” Booker said, about being hired as chief of Livermore Falls.

“I am looking forward to the challenge,” he said.

As of right now, Booker is also a reserve police officer for both Jay and Livermore Falls police departments.

He is also an emergency medical responder and is in the process of getting his emergency medical technician basic certification.

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