Two volunteer Ashley firefighters, including one who previously worked as a call taker for the Luzerne County 911 center, are accused of calling in over two dozen false reports of fires, crashes and floods because they were bored while driving around the borough, according to charges filed in court this week.

Capt. Zachary Xavier Gensel, 19, of Ashley, and firefighter Cody Allen Wilson, 21, of Sugar Notch, are accused of calling in more than 30 false alarms between Jan. 1, 2025, and May 27.

According to the charges, the 911 call center received numerous calls from the pair reporting a variety of fires, vehicle crashes, smoke investigations, fire alarms, burning complaints, flooded roadways and downed wires.

Each report required a response from police and/or firefighters prior to being deemed unfounded.

Luzerne County detectives began investigating the pair in May after the call center reported the “abundance of false 911 calls,” according to the complaint.

An internal investigation by the center revealed that Gensel, a former call center employee, had sent a text message to 911 while he was sitting at his workstation during a shift at the center at 100 Young St., Hanover Twp., according to the complaint.

During questioning, the pair admitted that they had been bored while driving around together in a command vehicle owned by the Ashley Fire Department. They told police there had been many times they called in false emergencies using fake names and call-back numbers, according to the complaint.

The men acknowledged that what they had done was wrong and said they had been worried because the fire chief had grown suspicious of the influx of emergency calls, the complaint says.

On Tuesday, detectives charged both men with 60 misdemeanor counts each of calling in false alarms to a public safety agency.

Court records indicated they had not been arraigned as of Wednesday morning.

According to online county personnel reports, Gensel was hired as a 911 telecommunicator in July 2025 at a rate of $19.35 per hour. He was fired this May.

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