March 22, 2018 was perhaps the worst day of York City Fire Chief David Michaels’ life, one that would haunt the days and nights that followed.
That was the day the fire department lost two firefighters in the line of duty – 50-year-old Ivan Flanscha and 29-year-old Zachary Anthony – as they were checking for hot spots on the fourth floor of the old Weaver Piano and Organ building on North Broad Street after a massive fire had consumed the building.
He had been planning to retire. He had his years in and had served as chief for eight years by then. It was time, he believed, to ease into a civilian job, one that didn’t come with a radio that sounded alarms in the middle of the night.
But he couldn’t.
He had to stay.
An avid reader, he had read biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant and Martin Luther King that winter, absorbing the lessons of leadership from the three men’s lives.
“He learned from that,” his wife Barb said. “I believe it was preparing him.”
Previously: York fire Chief David Michaels, who led department through some tough times, is retiring