New Palmer fire and rescue chief makes a splash

PALMER — Newly hired Palmer Fire and Rescue Chief Chad Cameron made a splashy arrival on Tuesday as he and Palmer firefighters sprayed a hose over a liner of plastic on the lawn of the Palmer Pioneer Home which has frozen into a community ice sheet. At a meeting of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly on Dec. 1, Department of Emergency Services Director Ken Barkley gave praise to Cameron entering as the new Chief of Palmer Fire and Rescue. Cameron replaces John McNutt as Chief.

“One of the reasons I accepted the position here was because I knew there was a lot of good quality people here that really had a lot of community spirit,” said Cameron. “Palmer always felt like home.”

Cameron grew up in a small town outside of Kellogg, Idaho, where he began his career as a wildland firefighter in 1991. After creative convincing from his chief, Cameron became an emergency medical technician and didn’t look back. Cameron moved to Juneau 25 years ago, and has moved his way up the ladder at Capital City Fire and Rescue to assistant chief. Cameron was the last volunteer chief in Juneau before restructuring and sees a level of professionalism across Alaskan fire departments.

“I cannot tell you how grateful I am coming here about the staff and the personnel that we have, the energy, the positive energy that they have, enthusiasm they have simply for serving their community,” said Cameron. “I took a class several years ago in the fire department that had nothing to do with fire. It actually had to do with core values being in the right mindset and I really think if I had one thing to bring to Palmer is to make sure that we in the fire department are really service oriented and we’re serving the community and focus back on the mission statement.”

Cameron hopes to interact with the community and build communication and promotion of Palmer Fire and Rescue. The community ice sheet at the Palmer Pioneer Home will be available to the public on Friday and is just one of the ways Cameron hopes to help the community. The ice sheet is a Colony Christmas sponsored by Napa and the Palmer Chamber of Commerce.

“The Fire Department, we deal with a lot of bad stuff and usually when we’re called someone’s having the worst day of their life, no matter what we’re doing,” said Cameron. “Any time we can turn that positive and do something like this it’s great for the personnel it’s great for the community why not.”