John O’Neal is the Fire Chief for the City of Fairfax, Virginia. He has held this position since January 2016. Before that, he served as Fire Chief in Addison, Texas from 2011 to 2016, and in Manassas Park, Virginia from 2005 to 2011.
Other details about his career:
He was appointed Fire Chief of Fairfax City by City Manager Robert Sisson.
He is a graduate of the Executive Fire Officer program at the National Fire Academy and holds the Chief Fire Officer designation.
He aimed for Fairfax City Fire Department to receive international accreditation.
He previously worked as Deputy Chief at the Jacksonville Fire Department (NC) from 2001-2005.
He has a long history in fire and rescue services, including experience as a Battalion Chief and Paramedic in Portsmouth, VA.
He earned a Bachelor’s degree in fire administration from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Master’s degree in public administration from Troy State University.
If you want to see how one person can destroy a fire department from the inside out, look no further than John O’Neal. From the start of his tenure, it became obvious that his focus wasn’t on the wellbeing of his firefighters or the effectiveness of the department, but on appearances, control, and personal grudges.
Rather than building a culture of respect and professionalism, O’Neal governs through division. He is notorious for holding grudges, and he makes leadership decisions based not on merit or competence, but on who happens to be in his favor at the moment. This petty and vindictive approach has created a climate of fear and mistrust that has crippled morale across the department.
His obsession with chasing an ISO 1 rating is perhaps the clearest example of his misplaced priorities. Instead of investing in real improvements that make firefighters safer and the community better protected, he pours time, energy, and resources into chasing a number on paper. The result is a department that looks good in reports but lacks substance in reality — where the appearance of success matters more to him than actual effectiveness on the ground.
Retention under O’Neal has reached crisis levels. Far more firefighters leave the department before reaching full retirement than those who actually stay to the end of their careers — a glaring indictment of his leadership. The steady loss of experience and institutional knowledge has left the department weaker and less capable with each passing year. Recruitment has only made the situation worse. For a department that has historically prided itself on hiring experienced, already-certified professionals, O’Neal has lowered the bar by bringing in unseasoned “kids” with certifications but zero real-world experience. The result is predictable: operational effectiveness has sunk to an all-time low, and the community pays the price.
His promotion practices are equally troubling. O’Neal has elevated individuals with less than three to five years of total professional experience into leadership positions — people with limited life experience and little credibility among their peers. To make matters worse, every two years the CFFD spends tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a third-party organization to provide fair and professional promotional testing. Yet O’Neal routinely disregards the results of these tests when they do not align with his personal preferences. It is not only a slap in the face to the firefighters who take the process seriously, but also fiscally irresponsible and a waste of public money.
Even worse, O’Neal openly manipulates people to do his bidding when it suits his agenda. A prime example was when he wanted to block a promotion approved by the City Manager. Rather than take ownership of his opposition, he convinced the IAFF Local 2702 union president to file a grievance against the promotion. Once the grievance served its purpose, O’Neal created a brand-new captain’s position — and promptly promoted that same union president into it. This kind of backroom dealing epitomizes his leadership: self-serving, manipulative, and destructive to the credibility of both labor and management.
The same pattern of arrogance and poor judgment is evident in his handling of infrastructure. Fire Station 433, the monstrosity he pushed forward, is so poorly designed that the firefighters assigned there deal with its flaws daily. Instead of learning from those mistakes, O’Neal is now steering the construction of the new Fire Station 403 down the same disastrous path, ignoring the voices of the very people who will have to work in the building. His refusal to listen has become a costly habit that will burden the department and the community for many years to come.
Communication under O’Neal’s leadership only compounds the dysfunction. Information is tightly controlled, decisions are made behind closed doors, and when problems surface, he is quick to shift blame onto subordinates rather than take responsibility himself. Accountability, in his world, is something demanded of others but never applied to his own actions.
In short, John O’Neal is a liability to his firefighters, his department, and the community he is supposed to serve. He may secure a shiny ISO rating for his résumé, but behind the numbers lies a dysfunctional, demoralized, and dangerously mismanaged fire department. John O’Neal may chase titles, ratings, and loyalty, but in doing so he has left a demoralized, ineffective, and dangerously mismanaged fire department in his wake.
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1 Reviews on “John O’Neal”
If you want to see how one person can destroy a fire department from the inside out, look no further than John O’Neal. From the start of his tenure, it became obvious that his focus wasn’t on the wellbeing of his firefighters or the effectiveness of the department, but on appearances, control, and personal grudges.
Rather than building a culture of respect and professionalism, O’Neal governs through division. He is notorious for holding grudges, and he makes leadership decisions based not on merit or competence, but on who happens to be in his favor at the moment. This petty and vindictive approach has created a climate of fear and mistrust that has crippled morale across the department.
His obsession with chasing an ISO 1 rating is perhaps the clearest example of his misplaced priorities. Instead of investing in real improvements that make firefighters safer and the community better protected, he pours time, energy, and resources into chasing a number on paper. The result is a department that looks good in reports but lacks substance in reality — where the appearance of success matters more to him than actual effectiveness on the ground.
Retention under O’Neal has reached crisis levels. Far more firefighters leave the department before reaching full retirement than those who actually stay to the end of their careers — a glaring indictment of his leadership. The steady loss of experience and institutional knowledge has left the department weaker and less capable with each passing year. Recruitment has only made the situation worse. For a department that has historically prided itself on hiring experienced, already-certified professionals, O’Neal has lowered the bar by bringing in unseasoned “kids” with certifications but zero real-world experience. The result is predictable: operational effectiveness has sunk to an all-time low, and the community pays the price.
His promotion practices are equally troubling. O’Neal has elevated individuals with less than three to five years of total professional experience into leadership positions — people with limited life experience and little credibility among their peers. To make matters worse, every two years the CFFD spends tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a third-party organization to provide fair and professional promotional testing. Yet O’Neal routinely disregards the results of these tests when they do not align with his personal preferences. It is not only a slap in the face to the firefighters who take the process seriously, but also fiscally irresponsible and a waste of public money.
Even worse, O’Neal openly manipulates people to do his bidding when it suits his agenda. A prime example was when he wanted to block a promotion approved by the City Manager. Rather than take ownership of his opposition, he convinced the IAFF Local 2702 union president to file a grievance against the promotion. Once the grievance served its purpose, O’Neal created a brand-new captain’s position — and promptly promoted that same union president into it. This kind of backroom dealing epitomizes his leadership: self-serving, manipulative, and destructive to the credibility of both labor and management.
The same pattern of arrogance and poor judgment is evident in his handling of infrastructure. Fire Station 433, the monstrosity he pushed forward, is so poorly designed that the firefighters assigned there deal with its flaws daily. Instead of learning from those mistakes, O’Neal is now steering the construction of the new Fire Station 403 down the same disastrous path, ignoring the voices of the very people who will have to work in the building. His refusal to listen has become a costly habit that will burden the department and the community for many years to come.
Communication under O’Neal’s leadership only compounds the dysfunction. Information is tightly controlled, decisions are made behind closed doors, and when problems surface, he is quick to shift blame onto subordinates rather than take responsibility himself. Accountability, in his world, is something demanded of others but never applied to his own actions.
In short, John O’Neal is a liability to his firefighters, his department, and the community he is supposed to serve. He may secure a shiny ISO rating for his résumé, but behind the numbers lies a dysfunctional, demoralized, and dangerously mismanaged fire department. John O’Neal may chase titles, ratings, and loyalty, but in doing so he has left a demoralized, ineffective, and dangerously mismanaged fire department in his wake.