Pender County Fire and EMS Still Down 52 Workers, Two Months After County Takeover

Two months after Pender County finished absorbing its fire and EMS service into county government, the department is still short 52 workers, and the staffing gap has been severe enough to shut down individual firehouses and EMS stations for a day at a time. Fire crews are operating at roughly 73% capacity and EMS at around 72%, according to figures set to be presented to commissioners this week. The numbers come as county staff prepare a final merger implementation update for the Sept. 8 commissioners meeting, as reported by Port City Daily. The fire department needs 96 firefighters to run at full strength and is currently down 26, while EMS requires 92 employees to hit full staffing and is short 26 of its own. Those gaps have translated directly into the kind of station brownouts that Pender County officials have been trying to head off for nearly a year. The current shortfall follows a wave of departures that predated the merger itself. Assistant chief Mark Haraway told commissioners that 42 employees left Pender EMS & Fire between March and October of last year, and Haraway, who led the department's fire marshal office until 2023 and has more than four decades in emergency management, said the merger contributed to the exodus because of uncertainty and potential leadership issues, per WECT. Not everyone shares that grim read: Jerry Groves said the merger has so far been a success, according to the same Port City Daily report. Pender County human resources staff are handling advertising, application reviews, background checks and offer-letter preparation for every vacant emergency services position, but the work has been delayed because HR also supports other county departments simultaneously. The county has already interviewed 18 applicants for seven open captain positions, with interviews and assessments wrapping up on Aug. 31, and offer letters for those captain roles are expected soon. On the EMS side, the county received more than 100 applications from EMTs and paramedics. A four-week EMS orientation is set to begin in mid-September, while a separate 21-week fire academy that started in June, with 21 recruits, is down to 16 remaining recruits and is expected to graduate on Oct. 23. That academy includes 14 weeks of fire training and seven weeks of EMT instruction. Seven additional recruits already completed a three-week driver operator course and expect promotions shortly, since driver operators are firefighters specifically trained to run emergency vehicles and their onboard systems. Beyond simply filling seats, county emergency services staff have had to learn systems they never used as employees of the old nonprofit. Staff have not previously worked with county purchasing policies or the Munis software system, and that unfamiliarity has caused delays in both recruitment and scheduling. The county also installed a new payroll system that still needs to integrate with existing county infrastructure so that former Pender EMS & Fire employees can be paid correctly as county workers. The administrative overhaul followed a rocky path. Pender County previously contracted with Pender EMS and Fire, a private nonprofit provider, for emergency services before the Board of Commissioners voted 3-1 in March 2025 to initiate a direct takeover and declared every seat on the nonprofit's board vacant, citing lost trust and difficulty obtaining financial records, as detailed by Port City Daily. The county hired North Carolina Fire Chief Consulting for $35,000 in May 2025 to mediate between staff and management and draft a formal transition plan, after legal counsel for Pender EMS & Fire had urged officials to slow down uncoordinated transition steps. A separate dispute with the volunteer Union Rescue Squad added to the turmoil. Union Rescue Squad briefly lost the ability to provide services in late July 2025 after Pender EMS terminated its subcontracting agreement, prompting commissioners to approve a $777,380 direct contract with the squad that August to restore local coverage. By last October, staffing shortages had already forced Pender EMS & Fire to cut minimum crew sizes on all four-person fire apparatus down to three people per vehicle, and commissioners responded with a $900,000 pay and benefit package that month, including $300,000 in salary adjustments and $500,000 to expand paid holidays from eight to fifteen, after leadership warned that staff were pulling 48- to 60-hour shifts to prevent brownouts, according to WHQR. The merger officially consolidated all emergency services under county control at the start of July, when Pender EMS & Fire personnel formally transferred to county employment, establishing a unified Emergency Services Department covering Fire, EMS, Emergency Management, Logistics, Field Communications, Training and the Fire Marshal's Office. The county says the transition has caused no interruptions to services despite the vacancies. In July, the county appointed Bruce M. Tucker, a former emergency administrator from Northern Virginia, as Division Chief of Fire to help guide personnel management and operational integration. Several new committees are now working through the practical details of merging a career department with volunteer squads. A 15-member rebranding committee will survey emergency service employees for input and develop a new patch and logo for future uniforms, while a separate social media and website committee will build a new emergency services website and a coordinated plan for the department's existing social accounts. An apparatus committee is tasked with creating equipment cohesion across departments, and the county plans to establish a formal career ladder for employees as it works to hire both full-time and part-time EMTs and firefighters. One committee's work carries direct financial stakes for homeowners and businesses. An Insurance Services Office committee will prepare for a full rating inspection in spring 2027 that will determine Pender's Public Protection Classification, which uses a 1-10 fire protection grade scale; a better rating can lower fire insurance rates across the county. The stakes extend beyond any single rating. Pender County's population reached nearly 72,000 by mid-2025, a growth of almost 20% since 2020, with planning projections putting the county at 75,000 residents by 2030, according to prior Hoodline reporting on the county's growth. U.S. Census Bureau estimates analyzed by Carolina Demography show the county grew 2.8% between July 2024 and July 2025, tying for the third-fastest growth rate of any North Carolina county behind neighboring Brunswick County. That expansion, concentrated along the U.S. 17 corridor far from the county seat of Burgaw, is the backdrop against which the county's emergency responders are now trying to close a 52-person staffing gap.