A fire chief is the top executive officer in a fire department, with duties that range from hands-on incident command in small volunteer units to primarily administrative oversight in large metropolitan departments. Depending on the region, they may be known as a chief fire officer (UK) or fire master (Scotland until 2006), and they are typically appointed by local government rather than elected. While it is common in the US and UK for chiefs to have risen from the ranks of frontline firefighters, countries like France recruit fire officers separately, similar to the military. Their responsibilities include supervising personnel, managing budgets and training, fire prevention, and establishing command at emergency scenes, often arriving in a specialized command vehicle. In larger departments, the chief delegates operational command to lower-ranked chiefs and only personally responds to the most significant incidents.