Youngest fire chief in Pinellas Park history plans to improve his community

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — A new fire chief is taking over in Pinellas Park. 

Andrew Hughes has been part of the department for 13 years and has been serving as the EMS chief since 2019.

Named to his new position just a few weeks ago, he’s still taking it all in.

Hughes is 36 years old and is the youngest fire chief in the station’s history.

Most who reach this position are typically much older, but he plans to use his youth as an advantage.

“I just continue to work hard, continue to set up the EMS division of the fire department and just show that, you know, I want to walk through this department with each member to kind of get them there and build them up in their career so they can be successful,” he said.

With his new role, Hughes plans to change the department for the better.

This includes relocating a couple of the fire stations down the line and adding a training tower.

“The first story and the second story it’ll have burn rooms,” he said. “So we can actually do live-fire training, live burns. Then the rest of the structure is, you know, other things for doing like high points, technical rescues.”

The personnel, the public, and Pinellas Park.

These are the three Ps Hughes always keeps in mind.

He said if those three things are taken care of in that order, everything will run smoothly.

“We want to be good neighbors,” he said. “And that’s my vision is that at the end of the day, we have 18 different departments in this county and I just want Pinellas Park to constantly shine and be number one in the minds of the public.”