A longtime St. Paul fire captain who championed firefighter safety and wellness throughout Minnesota has died unexpectedly, his union announced Friday.
Chris Parsons couldn’t be missed when you saw him — he was over 6 and a half feet tall and “towered amongst his fellow firefighters on the fireground, and his tall stature served him well when he was advocating for the working class at the Capitol,” wrote the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 21, the union representing St. Paul firefighters.
Parsons worked at Station 22 at Front Avenue and Marion Street in the North End. He was hospitalized after having a major medical emergency, following a shift he worked, and died Thursday.
He was formerly president of Minnesota Professional Fire Fighters and Local 21 secretary. He ran for Minneapolis City Council Ward 10 in 2021.
He was “a true leader,” Local 21 President Mike Smith wrote on social media Friday. The union extended condolences to Parsons’ daughters and family.
Proud to be a firefighter
Parsons was born in Keokuk, Iowa, and grew up in Minneapolis in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood near a fire station. His family lived in a two-bedroom apartment and he shared a room with his brother.
“Every night, almost, the fire trucks would go out on calls and they would sound their horns and the floodlight would shine in our room,” Parsons said in a 2020 interview. They lived there when he was ages 3 to 14, but Parsons said he never thought then about being a firefighter.
He went to Minneapolis South and Columbia Heights high schools. He was recruited to play football at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where he said he played his freshman year. He graduated with a degree in sociology.
Parsons said he was working a job he didn’t like, but one day in the breakroom he read an article in the Pioneer Press about a tow-truck driver who rescued someone from a burning car. The driver mentioned he wanted to be a St. Paul firefighter and the article indicated the St. Paul department was taking applications, Parsons said in 2020.
Parsons went to a firefighter candidate informational session. “It was physical work, which I liked, and it looked exciting,” he said. He applied — one of 2,000 people to take the test — and was hired about a year and a half later.
Parsons started his career as a St. Paul firefighter in 2000 and was promoted to captain in 2007. He said he was proud to be a firefighter.
“I wouldn’t want to do any other kind of work,” he said in 2020. “We never know what we’re going to face as firefighters, we never know what kind of emergency, but we just rely on our training and our experience. … Firefighters are family, it’s an industry like no other I’ve ever been a part of.”
Advocated for firefighters
Parsons served as Minnesota Professional Fire Fighters president from 2014 to 2021, a position he was elected to, representing International Association of Fire Fighter local unions throughout the state.
He “was a fixture at the state Capitol,” MPFF said in a Friday statement. “He was involved in the passing of many bills that affect every firefighter in Minnesota.”
Parsons “championed legislation that banned cancer-causing chemical retardants, provided lifesaving financial assistance to firefighters afflicted by injuries sustained at work, and helped pass presumptive laws that protected first responders against the devastating effects of PTSD and COVID,” Local 21 wrote in a statement.
In 2015, as Parsons was working on the ban of PFAS chemicals, he had a flame-retardant-treated couch set on fire for local news cameras and the couch went up in flames in seconds. “Parsons … did everything short of setting himself on fire this legislative session in his attempt to raise awareness about elevated cancer rates harming and claiming the lives of firefighters from coast to coast,” Pioneer Press columnist Rubén Rosario wrote at the time.
“Chris was an incredibly knowledgeable labor leader, charismatic and very eloquent speaker,” MPFF President Scott Vadnais said Friday. “He will be missed but his legacy will live on forever.”
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