Please keep them, along with his friends and colleagues in your prayers. Our hearts go out to Gerard's family during this difficult time. He received numerous Letters of Commendation and Unit Citations for his actions both individually and as part of the crew. During his service as a firefighter/EMT, he served as Rescue Captain, Engine Lieutenant, Engine Captain, Vice President and as a member of the Board of Directors. Gerard joined the department on and served the department and community actively for 31 years. is sad to announce the passing of Life Member Gerard McBurnie Dixon, Sr. At one point, the volunteers heard their services were needed and quickly left, followed shortly by the sound of sirens.The Riverdale Fire Department, Inc. “At this point, there’s nothing on the table, as far as I know,” she said.Ī handful of volunteers from the College Park and Branchville fire departments attended the meeting while on-call. “That’s always something that they consider from a staffing standpoint.” “When you have two stations that are near each other and one is struggling … there’s always the talk of merging the two,” she said. When asked about potential mergers between fire stations, Tomanelli said it’s a common discussion but the county is not considering official action at this time. “If you’re not on Facebook or social media, if that’s not your thing, you’re going to miss the boat,” she said. Most individual fire stations use some form of social media, but do not do much other significant outreach, she added. , a site dedicated to recruiting potential fire and EMS workers, launched at the end of January, but Tomanelli said the county needs more advertising, like on local television or park benches, to increase traffic. Tomanelli identified insufficient marketing as the county’s biggest recruitment struggle. It’s not at though we’re putting one group over the other.” “Budget wise, can only afford so many career staffers,” she said, “So we rely on our volunteers. Kate Tomanelli, Prince George’s County fire commission volunteer recruiter, reaches out to potential firefighters and EMS techs in the community. This can delay response times, but Barksdale said the difference is still within five minutes, the acceptable standard for a response time. It’s difficult to track missed calls by department, Barksdale said, but if a fire station is unavailable due to lack of staffing, a 911 call is automatically passed on to the next closest station to the incident. “What we’re hearing is they get calls that they can’t respond to because of lack of staffing,” said Kabir, before asking how many calls are missed. The department had 80 workers in 2013, and the station was down to 15 in November. The council approved a letter to former Chief Bashoor in October expressing concerns about the volunteer shortage at the Branchville station. Barksdale has been part of the county fire commission since 2011, previously served as deputy chief and will officially be sworn in as chief on June 6.ĭistrict 1 councilman Fazlul Kabir, who requested the commission’s presentation, brought up the decline in volunteer firefighters at the College Park and Branchville departments in the past few years.

Barksdale was announced as the interim fire chief in January and assumed the position after former chief Marc Bashoor’s retirement in March.

Pg county fire stations