Fire Chief Adam Fulbright

Adam Fulbright has 30 years of Fire/EMS experience serving Grays Harbor County. His career began as a volunteer with the City of Ocean Shores Fire Department at 19 years of age. Within 2 years he was hired as a part-time Firefighter/EMT and in October of 1998 received full-time employment as Firefighter/Paramedic with Ocean Shores. In addition, he also served on the Surf Rescue team and functioned as the department Safety Officer and grant writer. 

Fulbright’s education includes attending the WA state Fire Training Academy, Paramedic training through Grays Harbor EMS & Trauma Care Council, WA State IFSAC Officer 2, State IFSAC Evaluator and Fire Investigation. He has also served as a Coordinator/Co-Coordinator of Grays Harbor County/East County Fire Academies since 2000 and has attended Grays Harbor Community College and Columbia Southern University.  

Adam joined the Grays Harbor Fire District 5 on March 26, 2006, when he was hired as a Fire Captain and managed the district’s Training, Safety and Operations programs. He was promoted to Battalion Chief in 2014. 

During his tenure at Grays Harbor Fire District 5, he has been an instrumental member of a team of East County Fire Chiefs and Officers who have committed themselves to work together, to improve and enhance the East County Fire and EMS services for the community.  

With the outstanding commitment and dedication Fulbright has provided to the Fire District and community, he was promoted to Fire Chief of Grays Harbor Fire District 5 in 2019. 

Since his time as Fire Chief, he has had many accomplishments. With the team of first responders, officers, and administrative assistants, we have successfully rebuilt the district budget, implemented an accounts payable and payroll system that provides more accountability and security of our tax revenue. Full time staff was relocated to the Elma Fire station, centrally locating our first responders to ensure a timely response to all community members.  With community support we were successful in annexing Elma and Grays Harbor Fire District 5 together. Decreasing duplication of cost and merging resources to better serve the community.  The Apparatus fleet has been improved by purchasing a 2020 Rosenbauer Tender, 2021 Rosenbauer Engine, staff built a new Wildland Brush Engine and mitigated proceedings to replace two chassis on Ambulance purchased on Bond provided by taxpayers in 2014. A policy revision program has been implemented to ensure that all policies by the end of 2022 have been revised to meet Federal, State, local and best industry practices for our community.  

A Recruitment/Retention position has been created to help improve staffing and retention of volunteer forces. With that, a new platoon system was also created to reduce the amount of intrusion on volunteers to maintain training and response criteria, and increased staff to ensure the community has a response force when volunteers are unavailable due to work and family obligations. 

Another great addition is to improve Firefighter safety with the implementation of a pre-incident planning program to training firefighters on commercial building floor plan and potential hazards. Lasty, a healthy in healthy out initiative was implemented with the installation of an exhaust removal system to decrease exposure to carcinogens within the fire house.   

Chief Fulbright values the opportunity to lead and work with others in transforming the organization into a progressive and highly credible organization.

Adam is a native of Grays Harbor County. He is happily married to his wife of 30 years, Diana. Together they have a beautiful daughter, Kaila. He enjoys spending his time traveling and exploring the outdoors with his family and friends.