Price City Fire Chief Fitzgerald Petersen attended the Carbon County Commission meeting on Wednesday evening to highlight a hard working member of the community.
This commendation was for Justin Needles, who is the county’s emergency manager. Chief Petersen remarked that he was representing three fire chiefs; himself, Matt Perea from Wellington and Matt Montoya from Helper. The trio had a meeting and the discussion turned to what Needles and the county have been doing for them.
In March, the need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect emergency workers raised to an all-time high in Petersen’s 30-year career and it was very difficult to purchase the items needed to protect the firefighters. Through Needles combined efforts with the county, they were able to procure items otherwise unable to be obtained and made it possible for the fire personnel to stay safe in their day-to-day work. Petersen remarked that they average three 911 calls per day at the fire department.
“Without that effort, I don’t know how we would have safely continued what we were doing,” Petersen stated.
Needles thanked them and stated that when he took the job over four ago, it was always his purpose to take care of the county and all of its citizens. Commissioner Tony Martines stated that through all of the challenges of the year, it has been nice to have Needles to answer questions and assist in various scenarios.