Juneau fire department has new information officer

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Juneau’s Capital City Fire and Rescue has it’s first-ever public information officer.

The fire department has asked a local pastor to fill the unpaid “as needed” position, the Juneau Empire (https://bit.ly/1nffpbt) reported.

Tom Matthews, pastor at Douglas Island Bible Church, had been a chaplain for both the Capital City Fire and Rescue and the Juneau Police Department.

“It was the chief who talked to me and suggested . this as a possibility, and I was honored,” Matthews said.

Juneau Fire Chief Richard Etheridge said his department needs a point person to disseminate “consistent, reliable” information during emergencies. Etheridge said there were several instances in the last couple of years where a public information officer would have come in handy.

The 55-year-old pastor of Douglas Island Bible Church began his new role earlier this month.

Etherirdge said his department never had a public information officer before.

The November 2012 fire at the Gastineau Apartments was a good example for needing an information officer, Etheridge said. False rumors were being spread across social media about people dying and being trapped in the structure even though no one died or were seriously injured in the fire.

“With that fire, we broke the fire marshal free to update the media,” which helped quell rumors, Etheridge said, but that system of communicating wasn’t the most effective.

“With those types of incidents, they’re very fast-moving and dynamic, and to break someone free hampers the actual response, which we obviously don’t want to do but we still got to get the information out,” he said.

Having a public information officer in charge of communications will allow “tactical people to focus on the tactics” and will also let the public “get the big picture” about what’s going on during such calls out, Etheridge said.

“It’s one of those things that we’ve known we needed one for quite some time,” Etheridge added. “And it’s not steady, full-time work so we figured this is an excellent role for one of our very reliable volunteers to take on.”

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Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, https://www.juneauempire.com