Peralta welcomes new fire chief, assistant chief

PERALTA — The Peralta Town Council unanimously approved the appointment of Cody Kersey as its new volunteer fire chief, and Ashley Means as its full-time, paid assistant fire chief at the Aug. 13 council meeting.

Kersey has been a longtime volunteer with the Peralta Fire Department and was appointed by Peralta Mayor Bryan Olguin to the position. Kersey was previously the fire chief in Magdalena before he returned to Peralta about a year ago.

Olguin said they were originally seeking a new full-time, paid fire chief but decided to take a different approach put forth by Kersey to achieve a “best of both worlds” scenario.

“We got the fire chief who’s been there, done that, and Ashley is a firefighter, but her passion and stronghold is on (emergency medical services) so she’ll be at the direction of the fire chief,” said Olguin. “She’s full-time, basically running the EMS services there.”

“(Kersey) orchestrated this and I think it was very well put together and well thought out,” the mayor said. “We got two people who are really tops in those fields and they’re working well together and got a good working relationship.”

Olguin said Kersey has a full-time job, “but this is his passion and he’s very good at what he does.”

Prior to joining PFD, Means was a career firefighter and paramedic with Moriarity Fire Department. According to her professional summary on her resume, she has “seven years of dedicated service in (EMS) and almost one year in fire-fighting.”

Mayor Olguin said at the Aug. 13 council meeting that Means “has a list of duties that probably exceed the fire chief.”

Both Kersey and Means are in very good standings, and Olguin said it is a “blessing” how the two new positions worked out.

During a phone interview on July 18, former PFD chief Jeremy Fiedler said, “I’ve enjoyed helping the citizens of Valencia County as a whole and I definitely want to thank the town of Peralta mayor and governing body for giving me the opportunity to work here. I’ve been very happy here and I’m going to miss my friends within the fire department.”

Fiedler’s last day was on July 19, marking almost two years of employment with the town as its first paid fire chief. He spent 17 years serving the county first at Los Chavez Fire Department and later with Bosque Farms as the EMS division chief and fire marshal before joining PFD in 2022.

Fiedler said one of his accomplishments he’s most proud of is establishing EMS within the department and bringing in three paid, part-time EMS positions.

“There was no EMS at all (before),” said Fiedler, “and now we have an ambulance that we just need to get certified, so hopefully they can get that up and running in the next month or so to be a transport capable service.”

Fiedler said establishing an EMS presence was a big goal of his because the majority of calls fire departments receive are for EMS, and being that Bosque Farms does not have EMS anymore, there is definitely a need for that in the area.

“We have dedicated volunteers, but they’re at work during the day so we need to be able to have some personnel around during all hours of the day and night to help answer those EMS calls so that is why I pushed for hiring the part timers,” he said.

Fiedler said he is also proud to have secured grant funding to get an addition for the current fire station to include restrooms and shower rooms, a locker room for bunker gear, more office space and the installation of a fire hydrant at the station.

During the hiring process for his position, Fiedler said he informed the governing body he would only be staying for a limited amount of time, as after his son graduated high school he would be moving away.

As far as future plans, he said he does not yet know where life will take him, but that he’ll be “moving very far away to the other side of the country, and I would love to be able to continue in the fire service.”