When it comes to the quality of life in a city, little else matters if residents do not feel safe in the places where they live, work, play, shop and worship.

The city of Suffolk is quite fortunate in that respect, in that citizens enjoy robust, professional, well-qualified public safety services both from law enforcement and from the Suffolk Department of Fire & Rescue.

The latter got a boost on Tuesday, when City Manager Patrick Roberts announced he had appointed a new fire chief to begin work Oct. 1.

Michael J. Barakey, 44, was tapped for the job. He currently is a district chief in the Virginia Beach Fire Department.

Barakey appears to have quite a well-rounded resume in the fire service. He has provided leadership over special operations, personnel and development, communications and information technology, finance and budget, resource management, research and analysis, accreditation and training.

He has experience responding to large-scale events and disasters, as a task force leader for VA-TF2, one of 28 National Urban Search and Rescue Teams. With the task force, he has deployed to assist with the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and the two hurricanes in Puerto Rico last year.

He has recent teaching and practical experience as a hazmat specialist, a fire instructor, a nationally registered paramedic and a neonatal and pediatric critical care paramedic for the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk.

He has experience evaluating others, as a peer assessor for the Commission on Fire Accreditation International and is designated as Chief Fire Officer by the Center for Public Safety Excellence.

And not only does Barakey have an impressive educational transcript, but also he hails from Virginia Beach, where he has worked for 25 years. That means that he has experience collaborating with volunteers, as Virginia Beach is known for having a robust system of volunteer rescue squads.

That’s likely to be good news for the remaining volunteers in the fire and rescue service in Suffolk, who have reason to hope the new fire chief will be appreciative of their efforts.

We welcome Barakey to Suffolk and look forward to his contributions to our excellent fire department.