OAKLAND — Vaughn Farnham, a 58-year member of Oakland’s Fire Department and its deputy chief, died Thursday at his home in Oakland.
The announcement was made by his sister, Jane Farnham Butler, in a social media post Friday. The death was confirmed by Oakland Fire Rescue in a statement posted Friday, though no cause of death was provided and his age wasn’t immediately available.
“Vaughn loved the fire department,” Farnham Butler’s post read. “He was born to be a firefighter. It was part of our family. My father and my brother Don were firefighters.”
Although her post noted that Vaughn “requested no funeral or obituary,” Farnham Butler said that “he could be grumpy and stubborn just like his father and brother so I will honor his request, but it doesn’t mean I can’t say a few things.”
Farnham first began responding to fires at the age of 13, with his father, Ralph Farnham Sr., who was an Oakland firefighter of nearly five decades. He officially became a firefighter in 1965.
“(Vaughn) was a wealth of knowledge about everything fire department and town related, if you had a question about anything he was a call away,” Oakland Fire Rescue’s statement said. “He is going to be greatly missed by all.”
Ella Bowman, a former Oakland Town Manager of nine years and police officer of 15 years, said Farnham was always the first one at the scene when responding to a fire. She said he was “truly a local hero.”
“He was critical to the fire department,” she said. “This guy could run every piece of apparatus they had. He just devoted his life, really, to Oakland as a public servant.”
Farnham Butler said in her post that Oakland firefighters visited Vaughn daily in the weeks leading up to his death. “The firefighters were at his house every day to see if he needed something or help with something,” she said. “They were another blessing. They visited him in the hospital. Lots of them.
“I heard he told them he needed to sleep so they had to go.”
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