Central Emergency Services has a new Chief: Roy Browning was appointed to the position last Thursday following Chris Mokracek’s retirement.
Browning has been the Deputy Chief for the past two years.
Browning: “Prior to that I was in the city of Aurora, Colorado, I was a firefighter down there, an Officer Lieutenant Captain down in the Aurora Fire Department. I spent 13 years down there and prior to that I was a CES firefighter and Kenai firefighter before that.”
He and his wife moved back to Alaska after Gordon Orth offered Browning his position.
Browning was working in Aurora, Colorado, when James Holmes killed twelve people in a theater during the screening of The Dark Knight.
He said his shift crew did not respond to the theater but was sent to Holmes’ apartment complex.
Browning: “The biggest thing was just knowing the magnitude of the whole event and then the fact that he had basically booby-trapped his whole apartment for first responders and that would be police and fire. He had a mission and that was to take people down. So that was pretty real.”
Holmes was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on August 7, 2015.
Looking forward to the next few months, Browning said he is ready to take on the challenge of balancing increasing CES calls and big events like the Card Street and Funny River fires.