The Prince George's County Fire/Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Department has reassigned four firefighter/medics to its Riverdale Heights station from Riverdale. The changes will be effective Monday.
A statement released by the department cited "several ongoing conflicts between career and volunteer members, along with several ongoing internal investigations at the Riverdale station" as the reason for the shakeup.
A report released Monday stated that Riverdale Heights had a 31.1 percent failure-to-respond rate, the highest in the county. For the purposes of the report, emergency calls were recorded as missed if they were not responded to within one minute.
Prince George's Fire Chief Marc S. Bashoor told News4 via email Saturday that the reassignments and investigations were "personnel matters that I wouldn't be able to expand on."
The Riverdale Heights Fire Department had been staffed entirely by volunteers. The chief of the Riverdale Heights Fire Department told News4's Chris Gordon that his team responded to calls in a timely fashion, even if they did not answer every call within the 60-second limit.
The Riverdale and Riverdale Heights stations are 1.3 miles apart.
