ATHOL — Parents have long claimed that television has a great influence on children. In the case of Athol Fire Chief Joseph Guarnera, that couldn’t be more true.

Speaking with the Athol Daily News on Wednesday, Nov. 27, his last day on the job, Guarnera was asked what inspired him to choose a career in the fire service.

“TV,” he said without missing a beat. “I watched ‘Adam-12’ as a kid, and I watched ‘Emergency.’ I grew up in East Boston and would see the Boston Fire Department — and the Police Department for that matter — and I always wanted to be like them. Nobody in our family was a firefighter or a police officer, it was just one of those things I really wanted to do. So, I went to school for criminal justice, and later on for firefighting.”

Guarnera served with the UMass Boston Police Department for several years before first donning his turnout gear as a firefighter in 1997.

“I started in Revere,” he said, “and I was there for 20 years, 19 maybe. From there I became an assistant chief in Berlin, which I did for three years, and then I came to Athol.”

Guarnera said he has never had second thoughts about joining the fire service.

“I love it; it’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I love the training. I love the work very, very, very much. In Revere I was on a ladder truck. ... Most of my career I worked on an engine. It was phenomenal.”

Guarnera is wrapping up six years of service to the town of Athol. One challenge stood out as a priority upon his arrival, he said.

“The toughest part was really keeping morale up the best I could. When I arrived, the majority of equipment was just antiquated, old,” he said. “Firefighters weren’t paid enough, not paid what they should have been. It can make morale go down. When you have to work so many hours, some people say, ‘Well, you’re getting paid to do that.’ We understand that; we chose this profession. We chose to do overtime whenever we need to do it, but not 100 hours a week. People who aren’t in this profession or law enforcement, or EMS for that matter, don’t understand the stress level. And keeping morale up as best I could was always a priority.”

Guarnera said when he arrived in Athol he was given “marching orders” by the Selectboard that hired him. Issues they wanted him to address included morale, training, compliance and staffing. Early on in his tenure, Guarnera said, town officials were looking for grants to cover increased staffing.

“Unfortunately, I was never able to secure that,” he continued. “But I was able to secure a lot of grants, which filled some of the voids in the department. We’ve been able to get two pumpers. One pumper when I got hired was over 40 years old. I said, ‘This thing should be in a museum.’ I replaced that with a pumper I got with a grant. We were able to get a brush truck; that was just delivered. And when you see all this stuff coming in here, it boosts morale.”

Guarnera said he was also able get new turnout gear, new brush gear, new SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) gear. He also secured grants to cover the cost of training more paramedics.

“A lot of the equipment we had that was so antiquated and dangerous has been replaced,” Guarnera said.

In addition, he said, Athol firefighters have undergone training at facilities throughout the country, as well as in Mexico, “at no cost to the town — not one red cent.”

Morale took a big drop last August after voters defeated an $895,000 Proposition 2½ override to hire eight new firefighters, Guarnera said.

“We really thought we presented a really good case,” he said. “Some fire departments have 11 or 12 people per shift. We did it with four.”

But things are looking up since voters recently approved an override to fund the hiring of three new firefighters, with another added through the town budget, according to the chief.

Asked about his most gratifying accomplishment over the past six years, Guarnera said, “I’ll miss the firefighters. They’re a great bunch of people, great group of firefighters. The most gratifying thing I can say I’ve done is getting them the pay they deserve. I got them the equipment they deserve. Anything I’ve ever done has been in their interest. I did everything my hiring committee asked me to do and more. I can say that when I walk out of here, the department is in better shape than when I came in.”

While Guarnera is moving on, he is not moving out of the fire service. Though he reached his retirement age nine years ago, he has taken a position as chief of operations for the Fire Department in Merrimack, New Hampshire. He will not, however, be moving to the Granite State. Guarnera said he and his wife Gail will continue to maintain their home in Ashburnham. Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Parker will assume the duties of chief until a replacement is found.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.