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Program Description

  Operations

The Division of Operations is responsible for the day-to-day delivery of critical emergency medical services (EMS), fire suppression, hazardous materials, and technical rescue mitigation to the residents and visitors of Montgomery County. The division is organized into four primary sections:

Field Operations: the nearly 1,200 career employees who provide fire, emergency medical, and rescue services across Montgomery County.

Communications Section: career firefighters assigned to the ECC, responsible for dispatching the proper response assignment, ensuring fire-rescue response personnel have adequate situational awareness of the dispatched event, and managing all response communications and technologies.

Special Operations: provides specialized training, planning, technical support, and response in the areas of hazardous materials, technical rescue, water-ice rescue, passenger rail support, bomb/explosive incidents, fire and explosives investigations, and interoperable communications resources.

Emergency Medical and Integrated Healthcare Services (EMIHS): provides guidance and oversight for all pre-hospital care services provided by MCFRS.

MCFRS Operations' personnel operate from 37 Fire and Rescue stations. The career and volunteer components of this combination department work in an "Integrated Emergency Command Structure" that defines the authority and responsibility for all members of the service. MCFRS responds to more than 130,000 emergency incidents annually. Requests for emergency medical assistance comprise the majority of those incidents; in FY24, there were nearly 114,000 dispatched EMS calls and approximately 27,000 fire incidents, technical rescue, and hazardous materials incidents combined.


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Program Contacts

Contact Dominic Del Pozzo of the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service at 240-777-2236 or Vivian Ikoro of the Office of Management and Budget at 240-777-2758 for more information regarding this department's operating budget.

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Program Performance Measures

Program Performance MeasuresActual FY23Actual FY24Estimated FY25Target FY26Target FY27
Number of fire incidents19,35619,68320,00020,50021,000
Number of persons rescued from structure fires 16010555
Percentage of residential structure fires confined to the room of origin78.1%84.6%80.0%80.0%80.0%
Number of residential fire injuries per 100,000 residents2.51.42.02.02.0
Number of residential fire deaths per 100,000 residents1.10.40.500
Number of EMIHS (medical services) incidents 2106,394113,865115,000117,000120,000
EMS cardiac care: Percentage of cardiac arrest patients with return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC)31.4%32.4%30.0%30.0%30.0%
EMS stroke care: Percentage of stroke patients receiving complete "bundle of care"92.6%95.8%95.0%95.0%95.0%
90th percentile arrival time for first engine to structure fire in urban areas of the County 39:319:319:159:159:15
1  MCFRS began tracking this statistic at the end of FY22. FY23 included a high number of saves from the Georgia Avenue fire.
2  Includes mutual aid dispatches.
3  In FY24, MCFRS modified its analysis of density zones to align with the definitions of the U.S. Census Bureau, which is aligned by census tract.
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Program Budget Changes

FY26 Recommended ChangesExpendituresFTEs
FY25 Approved2189953411234.40
Enhance: Emergency Medical Services (EMS) by Adding 1 24-Hour BLS Unit (ESPP Funded)53956010.00
Increase Cost: Medical Director CPI Contract Adjustment77300.00
Decrease Cost: Holiday Pay - Number of Holidays-3760000.00
Multi-program adjustments, including negotiated compensation changes, employee benefit changes, changes due to staff turnover, reorganizations, and other budget changes affecting multiple programs.13191277-1.00
FY26 Recommended2323579081243.40