Tim Baker, Alpena Township fire chief, will soon be leaving on a mission trip at the end of October to help train firefighters in Zambia, a country in Africa.

Baker has been on three of these trips before through an organization called Africa Fire Mission. He has been on one trip to Malawi and two to Kenya.

Baker took his first trip in 2022 when he was the director of public service careers at Lansing Community College. He heard about the Africa Fire Mission through a trade magazine.

On his 2022 trip, Baker went to the fire EMS symposium in Nairobi, Kenya. He also attended the symposium last fall in 2024.

Courtesy Photo Alpena Township Fire Chief Tim Baker is pictured at a school in Malawi where he helped teach on one of his mission trips.

“I felt a great passion for doing it,” he said. “I have a huge background in training, and I wanted to take the skills that I’ve accumulated in my years and take that knowledge across the world.”

Baker is also a United States Air Force veteran who began his firefighting career in 1998 with the U.S. Forest Service in wildfire, assigned to the Gila Hotshots, according to an email from Wesley Richmond, communications coordinator at Africa Fire Mission. Baker has been a structural firefighter since 2000.

Baker said he likes to interact with firefighters in Africa, and get to know them and what kind of skills they have.

“It’s not a big difference from the skills of U.S. firefighters,” he said. “They just don’t have the same equipment, they make do with what they have, and they are very resourceful.”

“We take for granted what we have in the U.S.,” Baker said.

Courtesy Photo Pictured is a fire truck in Kenya. The truck has a metal screen covering the window, as citizens will throw rocks at the trucks and firefighters doing their job because they feel that they do not respond fast enough.

Baker has made some great friendships from his time spent across the sea and he still keeps in touch with some of the fire chiefs he’s met. There is great camaraderie and he appreciates learning about a different culture.

“It helps with me and my position as a fire chief to see what we take for granted and how we can relate that back and help the firefighters that are on staff appreciate the advantages that we do have in the United States,” Baker said.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.