Montecito’s fire chief is retiring at the end of the month, and another fire chief in Santa Barbara County is set to take his place.
David Neels has served as Montecito’s fire chief since 2023 and has 36 years of public safety service.
His firefighting career began with San Luis Obispo County Fire as a paid-call firefighter in 1989. He’s also worked for CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo and for 21 years with Santa Barbara County Fire.
According to Montecito Fire, Fallon has been “instrumental in founding the Santa Barbara County Firefighters Benevolent Foundation, an organization that provides financial relief for firefighters and their families after line-of-duty incidents and supports the overall wellbeing of Santa Barbara County firefighters.”
He also helped write and implement the county’s first Community Wildfire Protection Plan for the Mission Canyon community, “setting an industry standard of creating specialized plans for areas vulnerable to severe wildfire impacts,” according to a press release.
“Partnership and collaboration have been central to every success I’ve been fortunate to experience in my career,” Neels said in a press release. “This job has afforded me with invaluable opportunities to work alongside countless first responders and regardless of the patch on our uniform, we’ve worked together to take care of our community.”
Neels joined Montecito Fire as a battalion chief in 2019, was promoted to division chief of operations in 2023, and to fire chief two years later.
According to Montecito Fire, Chief Neels informed the Board of Directors in October of his intention to retire in the spring. His replacement has already been selected.
“After a thorough recruitment process, the Board extended a conditional offer of employment to Brian Fallon to serve as Fire Chief of the Montecito Fire Department, subject to the completion of a standard pre-employment process,” the department stated in its press release.
Fallon is currently the chief of the Lompoc City Fire Department. If his pre-employment process is completed successfully, Fallon’s first day at Montecito Fire Chief will be April 1.
Chief Neels’ last day on the job will be March 31.
KSBY reached out to the City of Lompoc and was told the City has no official comment at this time about the chief's potential departure.
