Wilton’s Camryn Czarnecki learned at a young age that emergencies are part of life. For the daughter of former Wilton Fire Department captain Kevin Czarnecki, who retired in 2022, a firehouse was a very familiar place.
“I just grew up around this stuff,” she said.
Now 19 years old, Camryn is already well on her way to her own career in emergency management.
“Once I had the chance to actually dive in, I did,” she said — though in reality, she’s done more than just ‘dive in’:
- In 2024, she began serving as a certified EMT with the Wilton Volunteer Ambulance Corps (WVAC).
- Currently a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, Czarnecki is majoring in homeland security with a minor in emergency management and national security intelligence.
- She is also the charter committee chair for the First Responders Club at UNH.
Adding to her résumé, Czarnecki recently completed an emergency management internship in Wilton, reporting to Emergency Management Director Jim Blanchfield. He noted the internship was essentially designed just for her, growing out of what was originally a temporary assignment at the Town fireworks.
“When we learned about Camryn’s course of study in college and her involvement with WVAC, we asked if she would be interested in participating as part of the command team for Wilton’s Fourth of July fireworks,” Blanchfield explained. “We were pleased that she agreed, and she was assigned several responsibilities. Her work ethic and performance in that role prompted us to develop a formal emergency management internship.”
“I can’t envision a better person to be our first emergency management intern,” Blanchfield added.
A “Very Eye-opening” Experience
Even with her training as an EMT and her general affinity for being prepared (she admits to using “triage” as an approach to managing her assignments at school), Czarnecki said the internship experience was “very eye-opening” in terms of just how much preparation goes into planning for Wilton’s next potential emergency, whether a hurricane, pandemic, mass casualty event or other situation.
“The biggest thing about emergency management — it’s not just planning for a major town event like the fireworks or a high school football game,” she said. “It’s constant planning every single day.”
“Going through Wilton’s emergency plans [and] how each department in the town is supposed to react and then deploy — it was just very eye-opening,” she said.
Czarnecki credits the internship with broadening her perspective beyond just emergency response to comprehensive planning.
“I’m so used to training to be the responder, to be the person treating patients and going on scene, I’ve never fully experienced the entire planning process,” she explained. “I always thought of emergency services over just 12-hour or 24-hour shifts. This internship showed me it’s not just going out when the tone drops. It’s consistent planning, constant planning.”
And yet, Czarnecki understands no plan can account for every scenario.
“I’ve learned you can never plan for everything, but the important thing is to have as many plans as possible. You always have a backup to your backup plan,” she said.
Blanchfield’s Assessment
Blanchfield praised Czarnecki highly for her ability to work with a wide range of police, fire, WVAC and Wilton’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) personnel.
“Emergency management requires people to work together across different agencies and disciplines, and that ability is extremely important,” he said.
“I was also impressed by her curiosity,” Blanchfield continued. “It’s encouraging to see someone at the beginning of her career taking that kind of interest in the profession. That kind of engagement demonstrated a genuine interest in understanding emergency management, rather than simply completing an assigned task.”
Blanchfield said he would consider offering similar internships in the future — but depending on available candidates, and most likely after the build-out of the new emergency operations center in the new police headquarters is complete.
He says the experience gives interns like Czarnecki the opportunity to see emergency management in practice — a view generally unseen by the public.
“Much of this work takes place behind the scenes, and an internship provides a chance to understand the planning, coordination, and teamwork that go into preparing for emergencies and protecting the community,” he said.
Looking Ahead
Czarnecki continues to seek out opportunities to learn. She recently took part in a regional active-shooter and hostile-emergency training, which combined classroom instruction with hands-on simulations including emergency casualty care and extricating victims from emergency conditions.
After college, Czarnecki is considering training to become a flight paramedic for emergency medical transports.
After her internship experience, the advice she’s offering residents is twofold:
- Make a plan before an emergency happens: Czarnecki says towns and businesses have detailed plans for emergencies, and so should households. “If you have that plan in place, you can take a breath” when a crisis unfolds and then take action with confidence, she said.
- Follow local emergency services on social media: they may post timely alerts and information about developing situations, which can often be unexpected.
More Than a Responder: A Community Advocate
Before the emergency management internship, Czarnecki captured the Town’s attention as a Wilton High School senior when she spoke at Wilton’s Annual Town Meeting in May 2025.
Despite the challenge of a stutter, which she acknowledged at the start of her public comment, Czarnecki chose to speak at the public forum to advocate for the nearly $1.3 million bonding proposal for renovations to the Raymond-Ambler House on the ballot that year. She eloquently described participating for more than seven years in the Ambler Farm apprentice program, where she rose from junior apprentice to project leader and mentor.
“I’ve gained leadership skills and enjoy seeing what all our work does and brings to the public. The skills the staff at Ambler Farm have taught me and my peers will follow us into our adult lives,” Czarnecki said at the ATM. “Ambler Farm has helped me gain confidence but also the courage to come up here tonight to speak on behalf of the nonprofit organization that has given so much to me, my family and my community.”
The bonding referendum passed.
