Prince George’s County plans to remove career fire and rescue personnel from Greenbelt, Berwyn Heights, Bowie and Bunker Hill, starting on June 30.
Impact
Currently, Greenbelt has 24 career firefighters working shifts Monday through Friday and “there’s no way to fill the gap” with volunteers, of which Greenbelt currently has 15 available, said City Manager Josué Salmerón to the News Review. Among the available volunteers most have full-time jobs and are not available around the clock. “There will be an inadequate fire and EMS service provided to [the people of Greenbelt],” said Thomas Ray, chief of the Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad, speaking about the decision to cut paid staff during a city council worksession on Wednesday, June 5. Though Ray said the volunteers will do their best, there will not be enough volunteers to fill the staffing gap in firefighters and Emergency Medical Services (EMS). With this change, there’s “a potential” for no fire and EMS services on Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Greenbelt, Ray told council at the worksession.
After the removal, Greenbelt will need to rely on surrounding fire and rescue companies to cover the city, said Ray, but one of the city’s neighboring stations, Berwyn Heights, is also slated to have its career staff pulled at the same time. Ray also noted that Greenbelt itself provides service to neighboring communities when they don’t have sufficient coverage; sometimes they go when several companies called ahead of them can’t respond. If career firefighters are pulled from Greenbelt and Berwyn Heights, the closest full-service station to Greenbelt would then be College Park.
Response Times
The current average fire and EMS call response time in Greenbelt is about four minutes. In a letter to Salmerón, on June 7, Prince George’s County Fire Chief Tiffany Green estimated response time will be within eight minutes starting next month. After speaking to Director of Recreation Greg Varda and Police Chief Richard Bowers, Salmerón thought response time could be “much longer than [eight minutes].”
At the worksession Ray noted that there’ll be a big impact on EMS transport services and stressed the importance of timely medical emergency care, in particular, early CPR and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) for cardiac arrest survivability.
A Temporary Measure?
The decision to remove career fire and rescue personnel will be re-evaluated in October. Green wrote that the Fire/EMS Department faces a “critical shortage” that is “exacerbated” by scheduled summer vacation leave and unscheduled leave like sick callouts, injuries and family and medical leave.
Though ostensibly a summer staffing plan, Salmerón is concerned that there’s no date for the career staff to return. Instead, they’re going to re-evaluate the situation. “If it’s just a temporary measure, there’s no need for re-evaluation, just put everyone back where they came from,” says Salmerón. “Long-term, I don’t think anyone at the county thinks it’s a good strategy to leave Greenbelt unstaffed with career personnel. I think the station’s too big. Currently it’s running 24 personnel. How do you go from 24 to none?” he asks. Yet he notes there’s a concerning history of the county pulling out of fire stations and leaving them to be staffed by volunteers.
In the worksession, Councilmember Jenni Pompi noted the trend of declining rates of local career firefighters and the closure of fire stations.
“Once [firefighters] get pulled, they don’t come back,” Ray said. Over recent years, three Prince George’s County fire stations have been forced to close due to understaffing, he noted.
In 2013, four stations in Prince George’s County lost their career staff: Seat Pleasant, Branchville Station, Boulevard Heights and West Lanham Hills. Seat Pleasant, which was chartered in 1916, continued after 2013, staffed exclusively by volunteers, but staffing dwindled and it became inactive by 2021; in 2022 it was officially closed, replaced by a nearby station (Shady Glen). Though the station is not reported to have closed, calls to the Boulevard Heights station rang unanswered on Tuesday (June 11). Branchville and West Lanham Hills fire departments now rely exclusively on volunteers for their operations.
Bracing for the Change
On Tuesday, the City of Greenbelt and the Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department and the Berwyn Heights Fire Department met with county officials, including County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Though Salmerón had hoped they might be able to get the county to change their minds, ultimately it was an informational meeting, he said. The expectation that volunteers will fill in the gaps is just not possible, Salmerón told the News Review. It’s his understanding that the fire departments were as much in the dark as the city was and that they were not consulted or given any more notice. Salmerón is hoping plans can be altered in the coming weeks but if not, come June 30 they’re going to lose 24 people from the fire department during the week. “That’s alarming,” admits Salmerón, who notes the city is preparing for summer sessions with large groups of children and also has to be mindful of older residents in Central Greenbelt. However, he’s trying to see what can be done to prevent the city from being completely without career staff. The Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department and Berwyn Heights are holding coordinating meetings and Salmerón says he’s doing what he can. That includes looking to increase the number of defibrillators the city has available; currently there’s one per shift with the police department and they’re now looking to have at least two readily available. Salmerón has asked the county to provide any available AED but if they don’t receive one the city will find the money to purchase it.
On Tuesday Greenbelt leaders also requested two Advanced Life Support units be available to them, one stationed in Greenbelt and one in Beltsville, particularly during peak hours. Awaiting a response to that request, Salmerón stresses he’s doing what he can.
One good sign to Salmerón is that the county says they’ll look to make adjustments, even a week or two if adjustments need to be made, not wait for October.
Council’s Response
At last week’s worksession council objected to the news. “This is irresponsible and outrageous,” said Councilmember Silke Pope. “Eight minutes is a long response time if your house is on fire,” Pompi later told the News Review. “What the hell is the county thinking?” asked Mayor Emmett Jordan. “This is one of the most densely populated parts of Prince George’s County … I don’t understand … Our residents, they pay for the service. Is the county going to send each of the residents their fair share back from the money that we send to the county?”
Randy Chow is a student at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and an intern with the Greenbelt News Review.