WTOC Saluting Our Heroes: Fort Stewart Fire Department earns top military honor

HINESVILLE, Ga. (WTOC) - As fire crews across South Georgia battle the state’s largest wildfire in history, firefighters at Fort Stewart have been fighting a different kind of fire threat—one that can come with higher stakes and heavier consequences.

At Fire Station 1 on post, the team responds not only to everyday emergencies, but also to incidents unique to a military installation.

“Something that’s unique about us is that we deal with things that go boom,” said Fort Stewart Fire Chief Albert Sisco.

Sisco is no stranger to Fort Stewart—or military life.

“I lived here at Fort Stewart. My family was military. My father was military. He was a Sergeant Major on this post,” Sisco said.

Along with Deputy Chief Gary Flores, Sisco oversees a department of 89 firefighters. Their leadership—and the performance of the crews they manage—has now earned Fort Stewart Fire the highest recognition available across military fire departments nationwide.

“Never won a department of war level award before,” Flores said.

The Fort Stewart Fire Department received the 2024–2025 Department of War Award, honoring the top military fire department across all service branches. The recognition evaluates departments on performance and service metrics that include community engagement, call volume, and response times.

“How well we’re doing things, community engagement, our call volume, our response times. All the aggregate data—that says you are successful,” Flores said.

The award comes after Fort Stewart previously received the Department of the Army’s top fire department honor—making this latest recognition an even bigger milestone.

Still, Flores emphasized the credit belongs to the firefighters on the floor.

“This award is theirs. It’s not mine. They’re the ones that earned this,” Flores said.

For Chief Sisco, the news still feels surreal.

“It’s always a shocker when you know, you get selected for something like that,” he said.

But even with national recognition, the mission remains the same protecting the post and preventing emergencies before they happen.

“Part of our big thing—preventing fires as opposed to fighting fires,” Sisco said.

What the award recognizes

Fort Stewart was named Medium Fire Department of the Year. The department was also credited with a critical life-saving response: firefighters extracted a crew from an armored vehicle that caught fire—preventing any fatalities.

For WTOC’s Saluting Our Heroes, Fort Stewart Fire’s latest honor is a reminder that behind every award is a team showing up every day, ready for whatever comes next.