The Hook – HOTSEAT- Fired up: Chief Werner’s career of a lifetime

The Hook – HOTSEAT- Fired up: Chief Werner’s career of a lifetime
Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner doesn’t flinch as two sirens zoom by his office on Ridge Street. “I hear a fire engine and then an ambulance,” he explains calmly, “so I guess it’s an EMS call.”

Werner says that when he first volunteered as a firefighter in Harrisonburg at age 14, “We didn’t do EMS calls.” Today, 50 percent of all calls that come into the fire station are for emergency medical services.

Werner became an emergency medical technician at 15– the youngest in the state, he says, adding, “Now they don’t let you be an EMT at 15.”