Staffing Method Endangers Anne Arundel County, MD, Firefighters, Study Says

The Anne Arundel County Fire Department should hire additional staff members and rethink staffing methods to better meet national recommendations, according to a new report.

The department is using a “cross-staffing” method, which the report argues poses risks to safety and response times. Cross-staffing is the practice of assigning one team of firefighters to multiple vehicles, such as a fire engine and a medical unit, which leaves vehicles without a team to operate them.

The report could factor into the department’s budget request, as the county gears up for budget negotiations in the spring. Leaders of the fire union, Anne Arundel County Professional Fire Fighters, are urging the county to consider adding additional department staff in the next fiscal budget and to eventually end cross-staffing.

“Understaffing the fire department puts the safety of the communities and the firefighters at risk,” said Joe Addivinola, the president of the fire union. “Right now, we’re doing a lot with very little.”

The recently released 2024 Community Risk Assessment and Deployment Analysis Report on the county fire department was conducted by Emergency Services Consulting International, an independent group, and funded by the county as a result of union contract negotiations in 2023.

Most units in the department operate with three firefighters per apparatus, the report shows, below the National Fire Protection Association’s recommendation of four firefighters dedicated to each fire suppression resource. Fire suppression resources are fire engines, aerials, rescue squads and fireboats. The department has four-person staffing for three of the seven ladder trucks.

The county department always sends the national standards for the number of firefighters to every call for service, said department spokesperson Capt. Jenny Macallair. To accommodate the minimum staff required at incidents, the department has to send more vehicles to one incident than if each were fully staffed, she said, increasing the number of vehicles unavailable to take other calls for service.

“As our population and call volume grow, the system that has served us well is beginning to be stretched,” Macallair said. “The [report] provides a data-driven road map to prioritize future staffing and deployment decisions to maintain reliable response times, protect firefighter safety, and continue delivering the services our county and residents expect.  This is not about correcting a failure; it is about planning responsibly for the future.”

The department also cross-staffs firefighter units between multiple vehicles, which also leaves vehicles without a team to operate them. While Macallair said she was not able to estimate how many firefighters were cross-staffed, Addivinola estimated that four to five stations have four firefighters at a time cross-staffed between two response vehicles.

Casey Cameron, the union vice president, said he is currently cross-staffed between a rescue truck and a fire truck. About 10 times a day Cameron said he transitions between the two vehicles, requiring him to transfer his personal protective equipment and other gear between them, possibly delaying response times and risking leaving materials in the wrong vehicle.

“We still are providing the best service we can, and we still get the proper staffing on every call, but it’s taking more units and drawing units from other communities because we’re not staffed to the national standard,” Cameron said. “We’re still providing the best service we can; our members are still showing up. We do everything we can, but we could be doing a lot better.”

Every second counts, Addivinola said, especially as house fires are burning faster than before. People have about three minutes to escape a house, according to the International Association of Fire Fighters, as newer buildings with open floor plans and synthetic materials burn faster.

Macallair stressed that the minimum nationally required staff addresses each call for service, but acknowledged that the cross-staffing method that takes vehicles out of service can harm responses.

“While this approach allows us to meet incident-level standards, it can reduce system capacity and limit the ability of resources for simultaneous emergency or rapidly escalating emergencies,” she said.

Moving away from cross-staffing and staffing four firefighters per vehicle would lead to a department that’s “efficient and safer while ensuring more units remain in service,” Macallair said.

The department has agreements to respond to calls within the Annapolis Fire Department’s jurisdiction, which is similarly struggling under the national staffing standards, and the city also responds to calls in the county.

From Dec. 1, 2024, to Dec. 1, the county fire department received 84,791 calls for service, a vast majority of which are emergency medical services calls. Firefighters in the department are all emergency medical technician certified, and many are also paramedics.

The report recommended several staffing suggestions, including staffing four dedicated firefighters at all times with each fire suppression resource, fully staffing a fireboat, and staffing a special service resource like an aerial or rescue squad.

The county fire department has made staffing gains within the past few years, Addivinola said. The current county budget accounts for 927 firefighters, up from 853 in the 2019 fiscal budget. To fill emergent needs, he said, 150 roles would be needed. He acknowledges the high cost of that hiring, but called the understaffing a “ticking time bomb.”

“At some point we’re going to see something happen and I’m going to be that guy that says I told you so,” Addivinola said. “Minutes and seconds count when there’s a fire and there’s someone trapped inside.”

Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman is set to release his budget for the 2027 fiscal year in the spring, following budget negotiations. Pittmann’s office declined to comment for this story, deferring to the fire department, and said it would be premature to pinpoint specific budget items at this point in the process.

Fire Chief Trisha Wolford is “prioritizing all needs” in budget negotiations, according to Macallair. The chief will present to Pittman on the budget in the first week of March, Macallair said.

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