Hyattstown Volunteer Fire Dept. faces staffing crisis

They help the society but they re now asking the inhabitants to help them A Montgomery County Council budget vote Wednesday could end in the Hyattstown Volunteer Fire Department having less staff and longer response times We have a petition out we ve got over the weekend we had about people that have signed the petition we need emails sent to the county council and on Wednesday we need people to show up at the council and express their need for the organization noted Hyattstown Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jeff Gross Gross has volunteered there for years watching the surrounding Clarksburg area grow and seeing traffic and crashes increase on nearby I- Assistants work alongside the career Montgomery County firefighters and paramedics who staff the station hours a day seven days a week On Wednesday the Montgomery County Council will consider a budget that could remove and reassign the career personnel leaving only supporters and not enough of them according to Gross Right now we try to respond to emergencies in about a six minute window Gross stated If this station is not staffed regularly the response times will presumably double Just last November Montgomery County dedicated the new Clarksburg Fire Station a county facility staffed by career firefighters and paramedics It is also on Frederick Road three and a half miles away The Hyattstown Volunteer Fire Department has a robust campaign underway trying to inform the inhabitants about the impact of likely changes The Hyattstown Volunteer Fire Department is not alone in this as volunteer firefighting has been declining since the late s U S administration statistics show