Washington firefighters worried about staffing shortage due to COVID-19

Health care workers in Washington are already facing staffing shortages due to the COVID-19 crisis. Now, the state’s firefighters are worried about the same problem.

Working on the front lines every day means that firefighters frequently have to quarantine for COVID-19 exposure or symptoms. Those who are left at the fire station must work doubly hard to make up the difference.

“That’s creating a lot of holes to fill, because we have staffing requirements, and so people are being forced to work mandatory overtime,” explained Tim Hoover, a South Snohomish County Fire and Rescue firefighter and paramedic who sits on the board of the Washington State Council of Firefighters.

Overtime creates high costs for emergency services — and for first responders, it creates exhaustion. The biggest concern Hoover has noticed among his colleagues on the council is fatigue.

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“People are tired, they’re worn out, they’re working a lot, it’s just the fatigue,” Hoover said.

And it’s not just a matter of being physically drained — there is a mental and emotional burden that firefighters carry constantly.

“People are also concerned about going to work and somehow bringing COVID back to their homes and to their families,” Hoover said. “Most of us, we take such good precautions at work that I think that risk is low, but I do think that it weighs heavy on people.”

Firefighters have good reason to be worried. In the United States, coronavirus is the number-one work-related cause of death of firefighters this year.

Yet, even with the staffing shortages and exhaustion, the state’s firefighters are working hard to make sure that no one feels the impacts of these challenges in the quality of care received at aid calls. Hoover said there should not be delays in response times due to shortages.

“You can rest assured that people will be there, they will be well-trained,” he said.

That’s because the state council worked with local fire departments around Washington at the start of the pandemic to form inter-local agreements between the different departments. Through inter-local agreements, fire departments promise to lend one another staff members in the event that one department has a shortage.

“Let’s say the Everett Fire Department had a large number of their department quarantined and unable to work — my department, South County Fire, we could go and provide them with that staffing,” Hoover said.

Hoover said he did not believe things had gotten dire enough that any local department had used the inter-local agreements yet.

Still, he emphasized that we can all do our part to help out the first responders who care for us during our times of need.

“Wearing a mask and social distancing are key,” he said. “And when we show up, doing that as well when we’re there and in your house is good.”

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