Employees Recognized for Work to Prevent Fires, Train Firefighters

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PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD--Two Prince George’s County employees were recognized with the Fire Chief’s Special Achievement Awards on April 7 for their efforts to train responders and prevent fires, according to a news release.

Chief Marc Bashoor said, “I am honored to have the opportunity to recognize two individuals for my Special Achievement Award. The two highest awards that a Fire Chief has the honor of presenting are Unit Citations and the Fire Chief’s Special Achievement Award.”

The Fire Chief’s Special Achievement Award recognizes an individual’s extraordinary performance or service which contributes significantly to the overall mission of the Fire/EMS Department.

“Our first recipient willingly accepted my challenge to coordinate a large scale, multi-jurisdictional training opportunity,” Bashoor said.

Battalion Chief Christian Wargo took on the voluntary responsibility, and worked with many others to coordinate four months of training in the Market Place project. The training brought personnel from around the region, including Fire/EMS and police departments, K-9, investigative teams and bomb squads. Over 1,000 personnel were able to train for extended periods, days, nights, and weekends during the four month project.

Making the award presentation Bashoor said, “For his tireless efforts as the Market Place Coordinator, I am honored to present Battalion Chief Christian Wargo with the Fire Chief’s Special Achievement Award.”

Chief Bashoor selected a second recipient for his Special Achievement Award, which is a rarity within the same year. It is equally unusual that this award is presented to a civilian employee who works for a different county government agency.

After Christmas Eve and Christmas day fatal fires in 2014, the program now known as Adopt-a-Neighborhood was developed. The program complements the department’s long established smoke alarm programs, with a proactive door-to-door campaign aimed at ensuring all homes in the county have working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors where needed.

After a couple of meetings with the County Office of Information Technology and their staff, the Teddy Hailegeberel was identified as the person who had the talent and the time to develop the ARCGIS application. This app is available to firefighters onsite.

The program is now being used at many of the 45 county stations to track door-to-door campaigns, including real time recordings of alarm installations, failures, and rejections. The real-time database provides an instantaneous capacity for follow-up that did not exist before to ensure neighborhoods are completely protected.

Fire Chief Bashoor presented his Special Achievement Award to the app developer by saying, “Without his efforts, the Adopt-a-Neighborhood program would be ‘just another program’ on the shelf. It is my honor to recognize Senior GIS Analyst Teddy Hailegeberel for his tireless efforts, including going door-to-door with us on several Saturdays, with the Fire Chief’s Special Achievement Award.”

Bashoor made the presentations during a ceremony held at the First Baptist Church of Glenarden.

Photos courtesy of Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department.