The Manchester fire chief has been fired after just over a year on the job over disagreements with officials about the direction of the department.

Town Manager Debora Southiere said the Manchester Select Board terminated Fire Chief Stephen Caswell’s employment Tuesday afternoon.

“He’s meant for a bigger department,” Southiere said of Caswell. “He has very big ideas. I think he has some wonderful ideas. The town isn’t ready to bring on an actual full-time department. They had created that position back a while ago, and it was meant to be a fire chief position, plus a public works position. I wasn’t getting that. I was getting the fire department part of it, but I wasn’t getting that public works from him.”

Caswell had been in the position in Manchester since January 2025, and had, for most of that time, also been working 20 hours per week as Richmond’s fire chief. He had resigned his position in Richmond on Feb. 19, Richmond Town Manager Jim Chandler said in an email Tuesday.

Caswell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Southiere said the Select Board met briefly Tuesday before an emergency executive session meeting to fire Caswell.

He will be paid two weeks’ severance. He earned a salary of about $66,000, plus benefits.

Caswell had a “different idea of the direction that the fire department should go, and the board and the residents were not on board,” Southiere said.

The decision to terminate Caswell’s employment had not been in the works for long, Southiere said.

Caswell is now the second fire chief to fall out in Manchester over the last two years. Former chief Francis Wozniak resigned in August 2024 amid bubbling public opposition to his leadership. Wozniak had spent two months on administrative leave after being charged with impersonating a public official; those charges were dropped in a plea deal last summer.

At the time of his hiring, Caswell said he hoped to reestablish the fire department as a positive force in the Manchester community by restoring transparency and several community-facing programs that were ended under Wozniak’s tenure.

Southiere said the town has not yet considered appointing an interim fire chief while a search for a new permanent chief begins, Southiere said. Deputy Fire Chief Mooers served as interim chief following Wozniak’s resignation.

The Select Board has also not yet established a timeline for hiring the next chief, she said.

Southiere said some of the rank-and-file firefighters who joined the department under Caswell’s tenure followed him from Richmond, but said she is not concerned about maintaining staffing levels during the leadership transition.

Southiere said the town’s budget committee discussed on Tuesday plans to return to a part-time chief model in the next fiscal year; Caswell was the second full-time fire chief in Manchester.