About CPVFD:

The College Park Volunteer Fire Department is located in Prince George’s County, Maryland, five miles northeast of Washington, DC. We operate two engines, a rear-mount ladder truck, a foam unit and three basic life support ambulances as part of the combination Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department. The station is staffed at all times by up to 24 full-time student live-in members, local members and supplemental career staff during weekday business hours, who collectively respond to approximately 4,500 incidents per year. Our response area includes the University of Maryland, City of College Park and northern Prince George’s County, consisting of numerous single family and garden apartment communities, over 100 residential and commercial high-rise buildings, dozens of high-hazard and high-value laboratories, two high-occupancy sporting venues, several interstate highways, waterways, state and national parks, passenger and freight train lines, a public airport, a power plant, a nuclear reactor, the National Archives, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, and various agricultural research facilities, secure government facilities and industrial complexes. The nature of primarily student membership inherently leads to a high-turnover rate, requiring constant training. The department institutes robust and regimented probationary and driver training programs to accommodate this turnover and prepare our members for the volume and complexity of incidents we respond to. Visit our John L. Bryan Fire Service Dormitory page for more information about our membership and live-in program.

The College Park Volunteer Fire Department has had a close relationship with the University of Maryland and its world-renowned Fire Protection Engineering Department since 1956. Fire Protection Engineering students have been a key part of our student live-in membership and have created an esteemed alumni base in the engineering community and the fire service. Fire Protection Engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to protect people, property, and their environments from the harmful and destructive effects of fire and smoke. It encompasses engineering which focuses on fire detection, suppression and mitigation, and fire safety engineering which focuses on human behavior and maintaining a tenable environment for evacuation from a fire. Visit fpe.umd.edu for more information. Our alumni have also gone to pursue many other successful career fields, notably in the fire service. Our fire service alumni base encompasses many major metropolitan fire departments in the United States and includes many of the top national and international fire service leaders. Visit our Members & Alumni page for more information.

About PGFD:

The Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department is a combination career/volunteer department composed of 33 volunteer corporations who cooperatively operate with full-time career employees out of 45 staffed fire stations across seven battalions. Staffing varies by station, with some staffed solely by volunteers, some staffed by volunteers with supplemental career staff during weekday business hours, some staffed by career staff with supplemental volunteers when available, and some staffed exclusively by career staff. Apparatus staffing is constantly communicated between stations and Public Safety Communications, allowing stations to staff additional apparatus when staffing permits. Apparatus is individually dispatched using Automatic Vehicle Locator technology and dispatch procedures to send the closest and specific types of apparatus based on the incident type. Published General Orders dictate these dispatch procedures, as well as predetermined apparatus assignments on various incident types, allowing all companies to operate under standardized operating procedures. The majority of incidents are handled by single apparatus responses, while more critical medical emergencies will add an engine company or medic unit and vehicle accidents will add engine companies for barrier protection and/or rescue squads for extrication, for example. Odors of smoke or natural gas are fielded by multiple fire apparatus and a battalion chief, while visible smoke or fire is fielded by a full box alarm complement of apparatus and two battalion chiefs. Volunteer chief officers also respond on incidents with their companies, when available. Visit our Links page for more information about the Fire/EMS Department and our neighboring stations.