News

City fire chief to retire at end of year

D. James Miller

By Bill Moss, Published: November 6, 2025

Hendersonville Fire Chief D. James Miller, who has led the city department since March 2020, will retire at the end of this year, City Manager John Connet announced City Council on Thursday night.

“We will celebrate James and his accomplishments as we as we get closer to that date, but want to go ahead and publicly announce" his departure, Connet said. "He wants to go out quietly, but we’re not going to let him. He did great things for our fire department, including raising it to an ISO-1 standard,” which enables homeowners and business to pay less for fire insurance.

Miller led the department when it used a federal a $1.25 million SAFER grant (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) to add 12 firefighters and a new engine company, helped to coordinate construction of the new Fire Station 1 at Five Points and effectively led firefighters' efforts during and after Hurricane Helene as they rescued people, cleared trees off homes and roads and made welfare checks.

Miller first joined the fire service in 1991 and in 29 years of service has served as a firefighter/EMT, in special operations as a boat captain and rescue diver, a Type 2 urban search and rescue team officer, hazardous materials technician, special operations toxicological paramedic and gold team member of a Division of Forestry Incident Management Team. Supervisory and administrative assignments included the roles of lieutenant, administrative captain, battalion chief and division chief.

Prior to joining the city fire department, Miller served as assistant chief in charge of training for special operations and EMS at the North Charleston (S.C.) Fire Department. Miller joined the city of Hendersonville as the deputy chief in August 2016.

Chief Miller holds an associate of science degree in aviation management from Manatee Community College and bachelor of science in business administration degree from International University in Florida and a master of business administration from Columbia Southern University. Miller and his wife, Morgan, have six adult children and three dogs.