She is passionate about prevention, and keeping people and property safe has been the job of Logan City Fire Marshal Liz Hunsaker since she became the first female in Utah to hold such a position more than 20 years ago. Hunsaker is retiring, and an open house in her honor will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. today in the northwest conference room of Logan City Hall. This is the last day Liz Hunsaker will be on the job as Fire Marshal for the Logan City Fire Department. She’s retiring after 22 and a half years with the Department and Fire Chief Mark Meaker says things won’t be the same. Chief Meaker says she has done an incredible job enforcing the codes responsibly. He says things won’t be the same without Hunsaker. “The thing that’s amazed me most about Liz,” Meaker says, “is she’s an incredible multi-tasker. In her job, a lot of people don’t know this, but in the last 10 years the number of fire inspections that the Logan City Fire Prevention Bureau has had to perform every year has more than doubled and she has managed to get that done with her same staff: herself and one inspector.” On KVNU’s Crosstalk show Wednesday, Hunsaker said her worst day on the job came in July when three people died in a massive mudslide in Logan’s “Island” area. Hunsaker served as public information officer which was a key role in the mudslide last July. Another bad day was when a mother and two children died when their apartment caught fire. Hunsaker says making sure buildings meet safety codes can save lives, but realizes that often means dollar signs for business owners. “Sometimes its a $10 sometimes its a $10,000 (violation),” Hunsaker said. “But the best thing I’ve always found is to educate.” She says talking things over with businesses has yielded great benefits. “Yes, there’s a violation, let me show you why it’s a violation,” she explains. “Let me explain what could possibly happen if we don’t fix this violation. And I’ve found that throughout the years that if I sat down with the business owner, the manager, and explained, and listened to their side of things, they were most willing to take care of the problem.” Hunsaker offered some last bits of advice before retiring, encouraging people not to use cheap extension cords and not to be without working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.