Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service

Montgomery County Department of Fire and Rescue Services

French: Gardez Bien (in English) Watch Well
Agency overview
Annual calls	~110,000
Annual budget	~$230,000,000
Staffing	1,200+ career
Fire chief	Scott Goldstein
EMS level	ALS and BLS
IAFF	1664
Facilities and equipment
Battalions	5
Stations	43 (figure includes volunteer corporation-owned firehouses, county-owned fire stations, and fire stations located on federal facilities)
Engines	41
Trucks	17
Rescues	6
Ambulances	50
HAZMAT	2
Light and air	2
Website
MontgomeryCountyMD.gov/MCFRS
https://www.iafflocal1664.org/

The Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS), officially the Montgomery County Department of Fire and Rescue Services (DFRS), is the public safety agency that provides fire protection and emergency medical services for Montgomery County, Maryland. The services are provided by a combination of paid county personnel and volunteer members of the various independent, non-profit volunteer fire and rescue corporations located throughout the county.

History[]

MCFRS personnel with FBI agents at the Pentagon a day after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

1980s

Recruit Class 1 for MCFRS begins 2/29/1988.

1990s[]

The MCFRS went to Oklahoma City in 1995 to conduct USAR operations after the Oklahoma City bombing.^[1]

2000s[]

In 2001, the MCFRS went to Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia aboard RideOn buses to assist in urban search and rescue (USAR) efforts immediately after the September 11 attacks.^[1]

In 2004, the County Council passed legislation to reorganize the Fire & Rescue Service by placing all personnel, career and volunteer, under the command of a single fire chief. However, actual services are delivered from the 19 local fire and rescue companies, who own and operate 25 of the fire stations in the county. The county uses an incident command system to coordinate the efforts of paid and volunteer personnel at the scenes of emergencies. Montgomery County works closely with and has mutual aid agreements with Washington, D.C., Fairfax, Frederick, Howard, and Prince George's counties.

In 2007, MCFRS implemented the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) unit numbering system. This system is based on the assignment of an individual numeric jurisdictional identifier for each major geographic jurisdiction within the MWCOG. These numeric assignments are:

0 – Washington, DC

1 – Arlington County

2 – City of Alexandria

3 – Metro Washington Airport Authority

4 – Fairfax County

6 – Loudoun County

5 – Prince William County

7 – Montgomery County

8 – Prince George’s County

9 – Frederick County

During an emergency that would require a response from multiple agencies, dispatchers are quickly able to identify what county a particular piece of apparatus came from. As well as a fast response time with other jurisdictions.

A typical mutual aide box alarm would sound like:

*Beeeep* Unites operate on 7A4, 1000 Main Street cross street First Avenue house fire. Paramedic Engine 702, Paramedic Engine 701, Paramedic Engine 719, Engine 754, Engine 844, Truck 716, Aerial Tower 719, Rescue Squad 742, Medic 701, Battalion Chief 701, Battalion Chief 704, EMS 704, Safety 700, respond and operate on 7A4. Box Area 1-2. 15:45.

2010s[]

On 6/26/2015, current Fire Chief, Scott Goldstein, was sworn in.

In April of 2020, MCFRS implemented a Covid-19 Surge Plan which included the staffing of more BLS ambulances, as well as moving ALS providers from AFRA and medic units to chase cars. This, paired with a continuous Blue Alert, which goes in effect when an EMS jurisdictional system is temporarily taxed to its limits in providing pre hospital care and ambulance transportation due to extraordinary situations that contribute to high demand for ambulance service, and decontamination teams stationed at each of the main hospitals in the county enabled proper patient distribution and lessoned the burden on the system. The Plan was ended in June of 2020.

In March of 2021, MCFRS implemented the new P25 radio system which changed channel names.

7A (Dispatch) became 7A2 (Dispatch)

7B (Ops) became 7A1 (Ops 1) *Second operations channel added designated 7A3 (Ops 3)

7C(Incident 10) became 7A4 (Incident 10)

7D (Incident 11) became 7A5 (Incident 11)

7E (Incident 12) became 7A6 (Incident 12)

7F (Announcement 10) became 7A7 (Announcement10)

7G (Incident 20) became 7A8 (Incident 20)

7H (Incident 21) became 7A9 (Incident 21)

7I (Incident 22) became 7A10 (Incident 22)

7J (Announcement 20) became 7A11 (Announcement 20)

71C (Incident 30) became 7B4 (Incident 30)

71D (Incident 31) became 7B5 (Incident 31)

71E (Incident 32) became 7B6 (Incident 32)

71F (Announcement 30 became 7B7 (Announcement 30)

*Same Pattern continues until 7C8 (Incident 60)*

7K (Alternate) became 7A14 (Alternate)

7L (Secure Alternate) became 7A12 (Secure Alternate)

72C (Emergency Medical Resource Center Call Patch) became 7H1 (EMRC Call Patch)

72D (EMRC Consult 1) became 7H2 (EMRC Consult 1)

72E (EMRC Consult 2) became 7H3 (EMRC Consult 2)

Stations and Apparatus[]

The county is broken into five battalions, with a total of 36 fire stations and 2 rescue squads.

Legend[]

* Denotes Special Operations Station

• Stations 7, 28, 20, 25 - Hazmat Response Team
• Stations 10, 30 - Swift Water Rescue Team
• Stations 25, 29, 31 - Technical Rescue Team (TRT)
• Station 23 - Emergency Response Team (ERT)

Abbreviations:

• A - Ambulance
• ALS - Paramedic Chase Vehicle
• AT - Aerial Tower
• B - Brush
• BC - Battalion Chief
• BE - Brush Engine
• BS - Boat Support
• BT - Boat
• BUTV - Brush Utility Task Vehicle
• CT - Canteen
• CP - Command Post
• DC - Duty Operations Chief
• E - Engine
• EMS - EMS Duty Officer
• EW - Engine Tanker
• HM - HazMat Unit
• M - Medic Unit
• MAB - Medical Ambulance Bus
• MAU - Mobile Air Unit
• MCSU - Medical Care Support Unit
• PAT - Paramedic Aerial Tower
• PBE - Paramedic Brush Engine
• PE - Paramedic Engine
• PRE - Paramedic Rescue Engine
• RE - Rescue Engine
• RS - Rescue Squad
• SA - Safety Officer
• SU - Support Unit
• SW - Swift Water
• T - Truck
• TR - Technical Rescue
• UTV - Utility Task Vehicle
• W - Tanker

Note

Stations listed in the above chart with red "(MCFRS)" or green "(Federal)" next to their names are government-owned. Stations that do not say "(MCFRS)" or "(Federal)" belong to volunteer fire & rescue corporations.

See also[]

• Fire departments in Maryland

Further reading[]

• "Council Approves Changes to Fire & Rescue Services" (PDF) (Press release). Montgomery County Government. May 4, 2004. Retrieved 2007-01-01.
• "Bethesda Fire Department, Inc. - History". Bethesda Fire Department, Inc. Retrieved 2018-08-01.
• "Glen Echo Fire Department - about GEFD". Glen Echo Fire Department. Archived from the original on 2006-07-15. Retrieved 2007-01-01.
• "Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association - about us". Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association. Archived from the original on 2007-10-09. Retrieved 2007-01-01.
• Parrish, Warren (June 9, 2004). "County volunteer firefighters endorse restructuring law". The Gazette Newspapers. Retrieved 2007-01-01.

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service.

• Official website
• Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service at the Wayback Machine (archived January 14, 1998)
• GWGVFD at the Wayback Machine (archived June 5, 2002)