Central Emergency Services began in 1959 with a volunteer program and is now revamping to include more volunteer responders.
Volunteer Coordinator Dick Kapp detailed new live in positions at the Kasilof and Funny River stations.
Kapp: “We’ll have two stations that are available for folks who want to live in a fire station and live there free and in return for living there they will be required to respond to calls when they are in the station and also be assigned a shift that they will have to work in the normal shift rotation.”
He said those openings are being tripled as well and the program hopes to pull applicants from local EMS, firefighter, and paramedic courses although they do not have to be a student bo be a resident.
He said one of the reasons that spurred the program overhaul is the change in call volume and locations. That means the senior responders have moved to the more core response centers, leaving openings in the less busy centers and that is where the volunteers will be.
The other reason for the overhaul is the changes in the Affordable Care Act.
Kapp: “Before we had what was known as on-call instead of volunteers and when we responded to a call we received an hourly rate. So all the rules involved in the health care changes was part of it so we’re now a volunteer program and the volunteers receive stipends, and the stipends are paid when they go on a call, go to training, or pull a shift.”
CES will host an orientation for anyone who has already applied or for anyone thinking of applying at 7 pm, February 9 at the Emergency Response Center located at 253 Wilson Street in Soldotna.