Arlington County Fire companies 'brown out' due to staffing shortages

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Arlington County Fire Department is facing severe staffing shortages, so serious that the agency had to temporarily shut down one of its engine companies. 

One Sunday morning Arlington County Firefighter Dustin Drumm woke up to bad news. 

"My phone blew up," he explained Monday evening. "Did you guys know that we're browning out? Closing, that's the fire service term." 

Ballston-based engine company 102 is the busiest engine company in the Arlington County Fire Department, and it was temporarily shut down over the weekend due to a lack of staff. 

"We did not have enough people to staff that fire truck," Drumm said. 

Drumm is also the vice president of the Arlington County Firefighters and paramedics union. He says Arlington has been dealing with staffing shortages for years. However, this is the first time the staffing issues have impacted service for the community. 

"If the 911 call comes out now there'll be other units that will cover that," Drumm said. "But there's a, there's a delay in that process." 

Currently, the county is short 35 firefighters and Drumm says those remaining crews are overworked and underpaid. 

“There's incredible frustration right now when people are having to work 72 hours and their missing family events and it's just compounding," he said. 

WUSA9 reached out to the Arlington County Board about the engine 102 brownout and a spokesperson sent us a statement saying the shutdown had no impact on services. They further thanked first responders for covering during this critical time. 

Additionally, the spokesperson acknowledged the staffing shortages and pointed to 2025 budget items that aim to deal with issues over a long time. 

“There's really no short-term solution," Drumm said. "You just can't get 35 bodies in the door.”

Drumm said there is a new recruiting class coming in but it won't fill the vacancy gap. He's worried about more events like the brownout on Sunday happening again. 

"I've been with Arlington for 22 years now and this is the first time ever in my career that this is happening, and I honestly believe that this is just the beginning of it and it will continue to happen," he said.