Ron Taylor is retiring after 15 years as chief of East Lake Fire and Rescue.

"He has taken this department from a one-station to a three- station department," said Lt. Steve Rogers. "This is a chief who is someone who is boss but also someone you can sit and have a cup of coffee with and just talk."

Taylor, a 62-year-old Hillsborough County resident, already had worked as a firefighter in Tampa for 24 years and became a division chief in that department before taking on the East Lake job.

"I never intended to be a firefighter," he said. "It just happened when a friend in Tampa suggested I join the department. Then there was nothing else I wanted to do."

Taylor started his career at a time when boots came in so few sizes that blisters were common and when the gear, which had to be paid for by individual firefighters, came only in small, medium and large.

Today, the department purchases custom-fitted gear for the firefighters, and fire stations with brass poles have been replaced by one-story buildings.

"There were a lot of injuries from those poles," said Taylor, who had to polish the brass poles in Tampa's departments. "Guys would break a leg or fall on top of someone."

In more than three decades of firefighting, Taylor said he's fortunate to have sustained only minor burns to both knees and his left shoulder. He said the improvements that he has witnessed have made fighting fires safer.

"I think a lot of things will change very rapidly in the future because of technology," he said. "I never would have guessed how computers changed things for us."

Fires were fought without any breathing apparatus until the 1960s, when firefighters were given air masks. But although they filtered out smoke, poisonous fumes still were breathed in. Compressed air tanks were not designed until the 1970s.

Today, firefighters are required to have annual physicals, and critical-incident stress debriefing is offered after especially big or disastrous fires.

"It's a lot more helpful than the black humor, which used to serve our need for relief," Taylor said. "Everything is better. Clothes are more protective; training is more intense."

As Taylor watched the gear of firefighters change, he also witnessed the change in East Lake's landscape.

"There were less than a few thousand people living here when I first arrived," he said. "Now East Lake has grown to more than 25,000 residents. Our department grew with it - from 11 firefighters in 1986 to 37 today and from one fire station (on Tarpon Lake Boulevard) to three."

Taylor said fires in the Brooker Creek Preserve also changed because county management reduced public access and increased deputy patrol.

The worst fires are those involving children, he said.

"And the best times are those when you think someone won't make it but they do," Taylor said.

"He's pro-community and pro-education," district Chief Tom May said of Taylor. May said that because of Taylor, the majority of firefighters in the East Lake department are better educated.

Born in Tampa in 1938, Taylor met his wife, Sandra, in 1958. They married a month before his 22nd birthday in 1960 and have three children: Ronald Jr., 39, Larry, 37, and Elaine, 33, and six grandchildren.

After serving in the Navy from 1956 to 1958, Taylor graduated from Hillsborough Community College with an associate's degree in fire science. He also holds a bachelor's degree in American studies from the University of South Florida.

He said that he has seen more fires "than I ever want to see again." He plans on moving to Hernando County and keeping busy.

"I'll probably take a computer class," he said.

This week is Taylor's last. Assistant Chief Jeff Parks will be acting chief until fire commissioners appoint a replacement.