Recently appointed acting fire chief Gerry Mahoney gives off a palpable love of Cambridge.

It�s not just the way in which he gushes about his firefighters or how he seems to blend in with the backdrop of the iconic fire headquarters on Broadway.

His love extends beyond those walls to the citizens, city officials, higher education institutions, area hospitals, neighboring fire departments, his three daughters, wife, parents and grandfather � all subjects he touched upon during a recent interview with the Chronicle.

Mahoney, 57, speaks fluidly, confidently and openly. He speaks as though he has waited his whole life for this moment. And the truth is, he has.

Mahoney�s grandfather, Jeremiah F. Mahoney, was a Cambridge police officer. His father, Paul F. Mahoney Sr., was a Cambridge firefighter from 1948 to 1955, before becoming a schoolteacher and then an elementary principal.

Following in his father�s footsteps, Mahoney was appointed to the Cambridge Fire Department on March 6, 1983. Thirty-four years to the day later, he would stand in Sullivan Chambers at City Hall to be sworn in as the acting fire chief.

�I�ve been very blessed. My only regret about the whole thing is that my dad wasn�t there to see it,� Mahoney, whose father passed away in 2006, told the Chronicle a few days after the ceremony. �I know how much it would have meant to him.�

Mahoney�no longer lives in Cambridge (his reasoning: �I married a girl from Medford"), but his 95-year-old mother still lives on Lexington Avenue in an apartment that�s been in his family since 1926 and where she and Mahoney's father started off as newlyweds in 1949.

We sat down with Mahoney to talk about his personal and professional history, his visions for the department � what he hopes to improve upon and what it was like working with recently retired fire chief Gerry Reardon � the safety of the citizens and the department�s personnel, and what he likes to do in his downtime (when he has it).

How did you find out you were going to be appointed acting fire chief? Is it something you had sought out or do you think you were just the natural next selection?

Chief Reardon retired Saturday, March 4, and I was approached by City Manager Louis DePasquale and asked if I would be interested in serving as the acting fire chief. I told him it would be a honor and a privilege. I had made it be known in the past in general conversation that I�d be interested in becoming the fire chief when Reardon retired.

So you�re hoping it�ll be a permanent position.

Yes, I am.

What was it like working with Reardon all these years?

I actually knew him before I got on the Fire Department. We worked together as firefighters for about eight or nine months. Gerry has a tremendous wealth of knowledge. He�s a leader � not only locally, but nationally � when it comes to emergency communications. He has been a real leader for this department. The goal of every fire chief I think in every community, no matter how large or small, is to leave the department somewhat better than you found it. Not that you inherited something bad from the previous chief, but you obviously want to make things better, as in any line of work.

And how did Reardon leave the department better?

He did that through tremendous equipment purchases. It�s not an exaggeration to say our fire apparatus is the envy of most departments around here. We have reserve or spare fire apparatus that is in better shape than front-line apparatus in some communities.

Gerry will be the first to tell you, he was complimented by both city councilors as well as the executives � Bob Healy, Rich Rossi and Louis � in wanting to work in a cooperative partnership to make the Fire Department better. A fire chief can�t just snap his or her fingers and say, �I�ll buy this or that,� you have to have the backing of City Hall. His legacy I think will be the apparatus, the equipment. We have two marine units. We joked for years the only thing he never got was a helicopter.

He always did what he thought was best for the personnel and the community.

How do you hope to grow the department?

One of my ideas is that I�d like to see more community engagement. We do community engagement, but we want to improve upon it. You have to sell yourself in this day and age, and I think it�s even more so apparent now.

Also, we have eight fire stations in this city. [Fire headquarters on Broadway] was built in 1934. The firefighters are using the same lockers my father used in 1948; that needs to be improved upon. While we�ve had tremendous equipment, apparatus and personal protective equipment, our firehouses have suffered somewhat.

A fire chief�s No. 1 concern is the safety of the public and his or her personnel that work alongside him. My firefighters are No.1 in my book. That being said, we need to improve upon the living conditions of the firehouses. This Broadway firehouse was built in 1934; this is the second newest firehouse in the city. The newest firehouse in the city is in East Cambridge (Engine 3), which was opened in 1976.

The other thing we do need is a dedicated training facility. It�s difficult in a built-up urban environment. The city of Boston�s Fire Department, their training facility is out on Moon Island. You have to travel through Quincy to get out there.

Where are the CFD training facilities?

Our classroom is located [at the East Cambridge station], and we are fortunate enough to use the classroom at ProEMS particularly if it�s medical-related training. But we have no place to do hose and ladder evolutions. We don�t really have a place to do training evolutions and we need that.

What about firefighter safety and health?

I think the Boston Fire Department, Commissioner Finn and the Boston Firefighters Union should be commended for the joint efforts they�ve put in for the health and safety of their firefighters. I�d like us to do something similar.

We�ve been fortunate; we haven�t had the high incidence of cancer they have, but we�ve had it and one case is too many in my opinion. Part of that is education. Firefighters for years back in the day wouldn�t wear their breathing apparatus. They�d come out of a smoky fire and the first thing they�d do is fish in their coat pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Those days are over, a firefighter and police officer hired after Jan. 1, 1988, is not allowed to smoke tobacco products on or off duty. That�s state law. Absolutely.

Firefighters tend to, when the smoke clears, take the mask off, and unfortunately that�s one of the most dangerous times because you still have high carbon-monoxide levels, there�s off-gassing going on and many of these carcinogens are colorless, odorless and tasteless.

The old clich�, 0-60, this is a line of work where it happens. Similar to law enforcement and EMS, firefighters could be in a very sedentary position and then the alarm sounds and within minutes it�s a building fire, it�s people trapped, it�s people screaming, it�s go, go, go, go, go and that�s not good for the heart.

Why do you think the Boston Fire Department has more cases of cancer than Cambridge?

I think part of it is higher [number of] fire incidents in Boston, but we have had cases. The cancer presumption law for firefighters covers seven forms, but basically any cancer: melanoma, leukemia, prostate, lung.

I haven�t been able to dig down into the data that would indicate percentage-wise that they�ve had higher incidence. So I�m not certain what the percentage data shows. We have roughly 275-280 personnel, while Boston maybe around 1,400 firefighters. Maybe we�re not so far off in terms of percentages.

We�ve had huge resources to tap into � Harvard Medical, Dana-Farber, the two foremost institutions of higher learning in the world in our backyard. I�m hoping we can tap them as a resource for a whole bunch of issues that concern the CFD.

Is there anything you�d like to do differently from Reardon?

I always told my daughters growing up if we all thought and acted alike the world would be a very boring place. While I have tremendous admiration for Gerry, and everything he did during his tenure as chief, there are things that I would probably do a little different.

Our fire apparatus � and his hands were tied somewhat by this � I think we can do something about downsizing the size of some of our apparatus.

One of the things that constrains us somewhat is that so many of our firehouses are old, the architecture is old and we can�t alter because of historical designation. So you see these beautiful, brick arched doorways, yet these firehouses were built for horse-drawn apparatus. We�re now putting large, heavy-duty, diesel apparatus in these, so I want to do something about the size of the apparatus.

What do you find most rewarding about working all these years in the fire department?

In all honesty, in my 34 years in this line of work, the most rewarding times are when you can help somebody, that can be a citizen and, now in my role as acting chief, helping my firefighters whether helping them with an issue they�re dealing with or encouraging them to advance through the ranks, helping them get to a solution, encouraging them to pursue education outside the Fire Department or advance their skill set whether it�s attending trainings at the state fire academy, becoming an EMT, a paramedic.

This city has been extremely good to me and my family for many generations. As I said, my 95-year-old mother still lives in this city. And I just want to help the citizens of Cambridge and the people who run the city, to know they have somebody effective and caring running the Fire Department.

What do you do on your downtime, if you ever have any?

I like to read. And my wife and I, now that the kids are older, we like to travel. We actually just returned a few weeks ago. We went to Aruba for a week. I joke because it was like Cambridge Fire Department South. It was our first visit, but a tremendous amount of retirees from this department own timeshare in Aruba. So we had a lot of fun. It was great.

I�m currently reading William Manchester�s fabulous biography on Douglas MacArthur. I also like true crime stuff. I read James Patterson, John Grisham. It�s interesting because when I was younger with my dad being an educator he was always pushing me to read and I hated reading as a kid, and now I love to read.

My family has had a home on the Cape since I was 5 years old. I�ve been very fortunate to spend almost my entire summer as a kid on the Cape.

You�ve had a good go it sounds like.

I�ve been very fortunate. I�ve been very blessed. My only thing, I commented on it during the brief ceremony the other day at City Council chambers, I said my only regret about the whole thing is that my dad wasn�t there to see it. I know how much it would have meant to him, especially having served on the Fire Department.