Prince George’s County Fire Chief Tiffany Green recently announced a plan to reallocate all career firefighters and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) staff at four Prince George’s County fire departments: Greenbelt, Berwyn Heights, Bowie-Bel Air and Bunker Hill. The effective date is Sunday, June 30. Since then, the biggest development has been a guarantee of an Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulance stationed at Greenbelt. “We are staffing a paramedic ambulance that has a paramedic and an EMT on it and that will be stationed for our peak hours from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week here at [Greenbelt],” confirmed Prince George’s County Deputy Fire Chief James McClelland, speaking in Greenbelt on Wednesday, June 12. “Call volume dramatically increases every day close to 11 o’clock and dies down at 11 p.m. So, during that timeframe we will have an ALS unit here responding to the calls and needs of the town of Greenbelt and the surrounding areas.” In addition, a basic ambulance will be stationed at Bunker Hill in Brentwood, near the D.C. border. “We are not going to leave these areas unprotected,” said
McClelland. “We realize the service that needs to be provided and we are going to provide it.”
The hall of the Greenbelt Fire Department was filled for the monthly, countywide meeting. “It was quiet at the beginning of the month. Unfortunately, that didn’t last,” quipped President of the Prince George’s County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association Lee Lutz in his opening comments. “The Chief has issued a new summer staffing plan. The career personnel will be removed from station [8]55, station [8]14, station [8]35 and station [8]39. This was done, according to the chief, to accommodate the leave problems that they’re going to encounter this summer when everybody takes vacation…. We’re probably 80 percent EMS calls in this county and that’s going to leave a pretty big hole on that part of the county EMS-wise. She thinks that the volunteers should be able to step up and help cover it, however there are surge units they’re going to apply to help out with the EMS part of the problem and there is one paramedic engine,” said Lutz. “I know as the association we never, never want to see career staff removed from any station in this county. However, we weren’t really given a choice. I was notified about this I believe Thursday of last week [June 6].” Career and volunteer personnel staffing are both down in the county, Lutz said, and he expressed the hope that folks could get together to devise a better plan.
“I’m not happy with that at all, either,” said Prince George’s County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association’s First Vice President Donnie Wells. Wells echoed that 80 percent of calls were for EMS. He is with the Bladensburg Volunteer Fire Department. “I am one of the volunteer houses that gets hit, and I see how my guys are already stressed,” said Wells of the volume of calls placed on volunteers and he predicted things would get worse. “Stress factors are gonna get high…. Right now we don’t have an option. We don’t have a choice.”
“Luckily we don’t have to worry about them taking all ours out ’cause they already did,” said Second Vice President William Cunningham, dryly, during his report. Cunningham is with Richie Volunteer Fire Department, which is also an all-volunteer station.
Green was out of town and unavailable for the meeting. In her stead Deputy Fire Chief McClelland talked about the summer staffing plan. For three years career and volunteer corporations and departments have struggled with membership, he told the crowd. “Prince George’s Fire and EMS Department for the career side is short 251 firefighters,” said McClelland. He spoke to the “physical and mental impact” on the career firefighters who have had significant mandatory overtime each summer for the last three years and haven’t gone home to families and children at the ends of their shifts. He acknowledged the impact on volunteers, too. “The Prince George’s County government has authorized the largest hiring in its history,” McClelland announced. “We are hiring 150 uniform firefighters in this budget cycle and currently have 32 graduates graduating recruitment school on July 16 and have just started 53 more recruit firefighters.”
Of the summer staffing plan, McClelland said, “First and foremost I want to tell you it is based on the physical and mental impact on the members that are providing the service. Last year alone career uniform firefighters worked over 21,000 mandatory overtime hours just in the months of May and June. That’s just May and June. It was projected to double that this summer. I cannot look my members in the face and say you are not going home to your families. I can’t do that anymore and the chief recognized that as well.” McClelland said he was happy they were “getting the people” and noted the long training period. “It’s going to take us time,” he said, citing an average of 30 weeks to get new firefighters and EMTs “out on the streets” and training requirements keep growing.
“This is a temporary plan. I’m going to say it again. It is a temporary plan. We realize people are worried. ‘When I call 911 are we going to show up?’ The answer is yes. I’m going to say it again. Yes.”
McClelland asserted, “These people are not being reassigned; they are detailed to reduce the mandatory callback times that we foresee for the summer.” Yet, in the Fire Chief’s letter to Greenbelt City Manager Josué Salmerón, dated June 7, Green used the term “reallocation” throughout and called the plan “a temporary summer staffing reallocation.” McClelland spoke of the call volume that is “dramatically increasing,” which is a challenge to manage with their resources. Each day, they will be moving units to different areas based on where the need is. “This is a team effort,” he said. “I realize that these decisions are not easy, they’re not comfortable,” acknowledged McClelland, while promising to provide service to all areas. “If I see that things need to be adjusted, we will make those adjustments.” The plan will be re-evaluated “through the months” and response data will be shared with officials, said McClelland.
Response
Mayor Takisha James of Bladensburg said the decisions felt “very, very last minute” and left no time for preparation. There was no time for other conversations or compromise, she complained. “Were you in conversation with the volunteers about this in advance?” she asked, to which the room at large responded with a chorus of “No!”. “You have to have conversations that are affecting everyone in the open in some form or fashion … not just telling people, ‘We made this decision and it’s coming up in three weeks.’”
“Understood … Yes. We all could admit that communications could be better,” McClelland said, to laughter. “The end result is, I’m here now.”
“I just hope that it changes,” said James, to which he replied, “I hope so, too, ma’am.”
Mount Rainier Councilmember Danielle Carter asked if the county would allow folks to serve as EMS only rather than requiring they also be willing to serve as firefighters. McClelland said that was on the table. “I don’t understand how the career [personnel] keeps lacking and the budget keeps going up,” said Carter, to which McClelland responded that there were challenges with recruitment on both sides nationwide.
Greenbelt Councilmember Rodney Roberts asked, “So, how am I supposed to feel good that my community here, my constituents that I have to worry about, are going to be protected after 11 o’clock at night and if they’re going to have to wait for apparatus to come from another community? How is that protecting my community? And I understand you might have numbers, but I see the results. When I’m here at night, I see them trucks comin’ and goin’ and comin’ and goin’…. So, I want better than what you’re offering.” His comments were met with applause. McClelland responded that when they see that demand they would move a unit so it is sitting there, though it might not be a Greenbelt unit. “Like I said, we’re doing this just to get through the summer,” he reiterated.
McClelland declined to take more questions, despite several raised hands, and said he would be in the back of the room to take questions. However, he left via a side room shortly after.
The News Review reached Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Public Information Officer Alan Doubleday for further comment. Doubleday stated that the temporary summer plan will be re-evaluated in September and that they’ll be evaluating the data every day. A report on how coverage is going will be sent to elected officials monthly.
The final plan was only established a week and a half ago, said Doubleday on Tuesday, June 18. Asked if communities could have been given more notice to enable them to come up with an alternative coverage plan, Doubleday said a longer timeline wasn’t an option because they’re so understaffed. He stressed the need for four people on a fire truck, two on an ambulance and so forth and the inability to leave a vacancy or assume a volunteer can fill in.