What's Happening MoCo?

What's Happening with Fire and Rescue Chief Corey Smedley

• Derrick Kenny • Season 11 • Episode 101

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Have you ever wondered what really goes on behind the scenes at your local fire department? Chief Corey Smedley pulls back the curtain on Montgomery County's Fire and Rescue Service, revealing surprising truths that challenge everything you thought you knew about emergency response.

From practical summer safety tips about barbecuing and AC maintenance to flood preparedness advice, Chief Smedley provides life-saving information every resident should know. His journey from being inspired by his firefighter sister to leading one of the region's largest emergency service departments showcases the power of mentorship and personal growth. Whether you're interested in public safety, leadership principles, or simply want to better understand the evolving role of first responders in your community, this conversation offers valuable insights into the people who work tirelessly to keep Montgomery County safe. Ready to learn more? Visit mcfrs.org to explore resources and career opportunities with the department.

Speaker 1:

Good day and welcome to what's Happening MoCo, an authentic unscripted podcast from your Montgomery County government. Now here's your host, derek Kenney.

Speaker 2:

Good day and welcome to what's Happening, moco. Today's episode. We're talking to the chief Chief, corey Smedley, of Fire and Rescue, montgomery County, maryland. Good day, chief. How are you today? Wonderful man, thank you for having me. Well, thank you for being here today, sir, and, as always, like to applaud great things in the county and we always want to make sure we applaud our heroes, so I'm going to insert some applause right here. Thank you so much for all that you do. I know it's one of those jobs that's tireless. I don't want to ask you how many hours you work a week, but I'm going to ask you how many hours does a chief of fire rescue spend a week serving the county?

Speaker 3:

Oh man, Well over 100. Oh wow, Easy OK. And you know that's that's not accurate.

Speaker 3:

that's about well over 100 in a two-week period okay um, you know, 10 to 12 hours a day on, on average, is is what I find myself doing, and then when you get home, it's uh, it. My brain is always working, so I try to save time for me to think. So when I'm at home, I I put time away so I can think about things and make sure that I reflect. Um, so it's a lot of hours, a lot of hours, a lot of hours, but worth life balance.

Speaker 3:

This is great, you At home I put time away so I can think about things and make sure that I reflect.

Speaker 2:

So it's a lot of hours a lot of hours, a lot of hours, but worth life balance. This is great. You take care of yourself so you can take care of us. Yep. And you spend 50 hours a week. It seems like a lot of time, but speaking of time, you haven't been with the county very long. You've been in the county for a year, now A year and two days All right.

Speaker 3:

Happy anniversary. Thank you and applause here.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's wonderful Over the course of an entire year. What things stand out to you as fire and rescue chief about Montgomery County and the people that you serve.

Speaker 3:

A lot of brilliant people in Montgomery County. I talked to the county executive's office yesterday. We had our senior management team meeting and what I talked about was how easy this transition has been, and that's because of the excellent people that work here, not only from the people inside the organization, but my colleagues in other agencies and the county executive office, as well as county council. They have been warm and welcoming. I ask a lot of questions, I make friends quickly and I've been embraced not only inside the organization but also in the community. So that's really what stands out to me. It just I've been in three this is my third jurisdiction now and all of them have been great opportunities. Some of it might be that I've learned better now and I have an array of experiences that I bring with me, but I think just the welcoming that I've received since I've been here has been one of the things that I was that stands out to me.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic and I think there's a good segue there. So what we try to do is demystify government and we don't assume that residents know that there's a chief of fire and rescue and that they know exactly what he does or even how he traveled through his career journey to get here. So what was your career journey like and what do you do as the chief of fire rescue?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I put out other kind of fires on a regular basis.

Speaker 3:

You know I'll start with what I do as a fire chief, then I'll backtrack to my journey. Really, as a fire chief, you, you are, um, a supporter, you are someone. Right now, we're I'm making sure we are managing conflict well. I'm pushing conflict out in the organization on purpose. I'm pushing conflict out in the organization on purpose because that's how you innovate, that's how you find new, creative ways to reinvent yourself. Um, and, and I'm a supporter, uh, quite often I'm a listener, uh, I I'm a coach, uh, I, I am someone who knocks down barriers.

Speaker 3:

Um, I make sure that I leave room at tables, I make sure that I partner with not only my other public safety agencies in the county but in the region, but also get to know the community well and understand what what they need and what's important to them. I'm a researcher, I'm a legislator, I work with budget, I do infrastructure with we have 37 fire stations, but we have four or five other facilities that we utilize a training academy, a central maintenance fleet, et cetera. I am someone that a visionary, so I have to, you know, continue to. That's why I told you earlier my I leave time for me to think, because I'm always trying to figure out. How do we? We reinvent ourselves because our mission is constantly changing, emergencies are changing this, this cell phone here this cell phone here, right.

Speaker 3:

This cell phone doesn't need to be plugged into anything to start a fire. So you know you think of beforehand.

Speaker 2:

You went somewhere totally different than I thought you were going.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, it can start a fire.

Speaker 2:

A cell phone.

Speaker 3:

A cell phone. Lithium-ion batteries oh wow, we have them everywhere. We have them in watches, we have them in phones. We have them everywhere. We have them in watches, we have them in phones, we have them in vehicles. They're everywhere. And so that's a unique kind of emergency that we didn't start out. When I started, 30 years ago, we didn't have to worry about lithium-ion batteries, and so there are things that we have to really be agile and figure out. How do we continue to keep up with the changing world around us? And so I do all those things as a fire chief, and I do it with a lot of help. There's a lot of support around for fire chiefs. But I'll talk a little bit about my journey. So I actually grew up in Washington DC. Okay.

Speaker 3:

And I've told this story several times I never interacted with the fire department growing up in Washington DC, except for two reasons when the fire department came to the school for career day, you had to play on the fire trucks. I got to talk to the firefighters and then in the summertime they opened up the hydrants and we played in the water. Those are the only two memories I have of the fire service in Washington DC. My parents didn't take me call 911. They just if something happened. They took me to the hospital and they cared for me that way. So I'm the youngest in the bunch. I have two older sisters, and my sister that's right next to me joined the Prince George's County Fire Department in 1989. And that in itself just got me to pay attention to the fire service. I was really proud of my sister. I was excited about what she was doing and accomplishing and I just really got interested in the fire service. So my sister was the impetus of me joining the fire department, oh wow.

Speaker 2:

Now, when you have the balance of greatness, when you think about a brother-sister you think about Reggie Miller and his sister, who's an outstanding basketball player in her own right, and his sister, who's an outstanding basketball player in her own right how how's it feel to be inspired by a sibling to lead you on to a great path yourself?

Speaker 3:

It's wonderful Again I had no experience in a lot of Montgomery County is a combination system, so they have volunteers and they have career in DC. District of Columbia is all career, so there wasn't an opportunity for me to get exposed to the fire service through volunteering. So when I saw my sister, I went to her graduation. She talked about training, she showed me her equipment. She let me play with her equipment, or tinker with it, and I just thought, wow, this is something great.

Speaker 3:

You see it on the TV, you see it when you're out and about and you're like my sister does that, and so that really inspired me, so I felt really proud.

Speaker 2:

I really I love it when there's stories like this, where you're inspired by heroes to be a hero yourself, and a lot of times one of those, I think. Firefighters and police officers and EMS workers, soldiers all these are things that children idolize, and rightfully so to be when they grow up. And here you are now, the top firefighter or emergency worker in the county. How does that impact the way you engage with young people in the county and even younger officers or younger burgeoning firefighters in their careers?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a. That's a great question. Um. One thing um about this, this, this business it teaches you that uh, tomorrow's not promised Um. So you know, I I forgive quickly Um I uh give grace fast. Uh, I make sure that I talk to people um, especially our young people, and just um demystify this position so they can understand that I'm human.

Speaker 3:

Um, I asked them questions to spark ideas about what they think they want to be when they grow up. Uh, I tell them about the great things that the fire service has for you. Uh, I tell them that, uh, that we welcome you as you are, and then I give them an opportunity to ask me whatever questions they want, so that we can build a relationship with each other, Even if it's a short conversation. Certain things in your life, you remember it and you never know how that can impact someone's life in the future. So I hope that when people interact with me, they say that I'm approachable, I'm a kind person and I'm a listener and really I care about you. As long as I'm doing that, I think I'm doing my job in that space that I give people an opportunity to think beyond where they currently are and that there's an opportunity for them whatever they want to do in life.

Speaker 2:

All right, now it's. It's interesting that you mentioned young people and, I guess, them being inspired and the considerations you give to others. You don't recognize always the importance of emotional intelligence. That's kind of what you're talking about when you're talking about providing grace and forgiveness and listening and being considerate. How important is the emotional IQ for the chief of fire and rescue in?

Speaker 3:

the county.

Speaker 2:

You kind of alluded to it, but when you talk about the skills that it takes to be one of the top emergency workers in this region, emotional IQ.

Speaker 3:

Emotional IQ is one of the most important things to have in a position like this and in any fire service really. What I really look for most is character and that competency. We can teach you how to be a paramedic. We can teach you how to be a firefighter. It's hard to teach you to have character. So I learned that in my journey and every day. I make a joke with my executive officer on a regular basis. I say it quite often it's amazing that everybody else knows how to do my job better than me. And if I?

Speaker 3:

didn't have emotional intelligence, emotional IQ. That would bother me, but it's really not. I'm really listening to the workforce, actively listening to the workforce, because they're really the closest point to execution Right. So when we develop a policy, we create a new training regimen, they're the ones that's executing that. So I have to understand they might not have been in certain rooms and have that exposure experience. They all come from different walks of life and different upbringings so they might not have what somebody thinks they have. So when they approach me with things, I have to receive them as they are and try to meet them where they are so that we can all be in the same direction, accomplishing the same mission.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's wonderful that you're there and you lend the ear. Being heard is one of the most important gifts that you can give someone. Um, and and I think there's something said that even if 80% of what someone's saying to you already got in your pocket and you already know that, 20% might make the world of difference when it comes to, uh, planning policy or implementing change or being more effective in your job, and those types of stats. Of stats are a little, I guess, kind of ethereal. What type of stats, in other ways, drive you? Are there stats that you look at when it comes to serving the county, that you lean on as barometers of success or of what you need to focus your resources on?

Speaker 3:

Oh, yeah, so I know. So, council of Governments and the actual report. The actual name of the report skips me, but it talks about homelessness and they look at that in the entire region and so, for an example, recently a report was published this year about homelessness and Montgomery County had a significant amount. I can't remember the exact percentage, but they had a significant amount. So if you're, if you're in an unhoused space, then that tells me some other things that as a high probability, you're out in the elements and right now we have a high heat index, so we know what your body reacts to. In that space you might not have the appropriate nourishment, so things could happen with your physiology, diabetes or other things. You are in situations where you don't get normal medical attention. So that is important information to know for the fire service, because quite often public safety is kind of that catch-all, so they use 911 for things that they really can't figure out a solution for, or in their minds a solution does not exist. So information like that is very important to to the fire service.

Speaker 3:

The kind of development that's coming right. Uh, what is what's going on with the hospitals, right? Um, are our hospitals in a good space or they're struggling. Um, what's going on with the employment right, right? Or what's the unemployment rate? Our nonprofits, that has a lot of resources that they commit to the community. If they are in a struggling space and certain things that are basics to keep you in a balanced space will start to decline, which means our call volume might go up. So a lot of those things are really important.

Speaker 3:

How the road designs are, that helps us traverse back and forth across the county when we have to respond for our 911 call. So there are people don't really think of those kind of things when they're thinking of the fire service.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you mentioned the fire service and we mentioned fire rescue, but for a lot of people, I know, for me, all I hear is fire, because fire is such a powerful word. You know you go in a theater, you go fire, people run. But what you've been saying, a lot of what you're talking about in terms of service, has more to do with health than it does fire emergencies. How much of the job is that in the county when it comes to fire and rescue?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you for that. And this is not just in Montgomery County, this is industry-wide in the country. Anywhere between 75% to 85% of what we do is healthcare-related. Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:

Emergency medical services. So there's no different in Montgomery County. Um, we, we run about a hundred uh and 42, 143,000 calls annually. 80, 80% of those calls are for EMS. So, uh, you know a stat that people will hear often it has to do with fire fatalities. Right, every fatality is horrible. Every fatality is horrible. But I want to give you some stats and let you see what the story that's going to be told.

Speaker 3:

Much better now and moving forward in Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service, unfortunately, last year we had nine fire fatalities last calendar year. That's horrible and that's a little higher than normal. Um, we had over 800 other kind of fatalities in the county and you don't hear about that and that's your. You know, heart attacks, normal deaths, accidents, it's everything else. And so when you have finite resources which we are very resource rich here in the county, but they're still finite, and so when you ask someone like me, how do you balance 1.1 million people in the community with our finite resources? We are reimagining how we approach that and that's why I told you I'm infusing conflict management into the organization to rethink how we approach things. I need to continue to ask our county executive, our budget office, county council for more money so I can hire more firefighters and paramedics, so I can build more stations, so I can build more fire trucks.

Speaker 3:

But I also need to really think how we approach helping our community be resilient and safe in space. And sometimes it is not a response, it's more preventive, and so we're looking at better ways to prevent those emergencies instead of just only responding to them.

Speaker 2:

Wow, and that's interesting. You say that I was thinking to myself. You know, man, why don't I kick out a few key words to the chief and see how you respond? What's the first thing that comes to mind In terms of public safety and maybe tips for residents? It's the summertime, barbecuing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so you know I'm not going to try to state actual codes, but you know you need to make sure that when you're barbecuing it's the appropriate distance away from the structure and normally it's about 30 feet. We ran a call a couple of weeks ago where there was a deck on the rear of the house. The barbecue pit hadn't been used for two weeks. It was a charcoal and we're still going through the official cause of the fire. But, preliminary, it appears that there was still coals in that grill that caught the outside of the house on fire and the house is destroyed.

Speaker 3:

So making sure when you're cooking outside you have water available, maybe a bucket of water. It's away from the house. There are no other combustibles, things that can catch on fire around. Make sure that it's an adult that understands what to do and it's not kids, and you don't have debris and other things around, so that you can be safe. There are a lot of things like that. For instance, nobody thinks of quite often, that the AC unit outside needs to be checked. So, for example, the AC unit outside needs to be checked.

Speaker 3:

So, for example, we've been having a lot of 80, 90 degree days and that means that the AC unit is working hard. People want to stay cool inside. No-transcript. Outside of the siding on fire it can run up the whole house or run across the roof and by the time you know it, your house is destroyed because the smoke alarm is not going to catch that because it came on the outside. So one thing I would say is that we have resources at mcfrsorg. You can go to our website, you can go to 311 and request one of our preventive community risk reduction personnel to come out and provide you some not only fire tips but health tips to keep you safe at home. Other things I would tell you we're doing some amazing things as it relates to prevention. So we have one initiative called Take 10, and that's through our community action coordinator and that person, lieutenant Smith, is going around the county. He's saturating the county not only government agencies, schools, recs, community members to teach hands-only CPR.

Speaker 3:

What we're finding what we're finding is that we just did an EMS award a few weeks ago where we recognized the people we saved and the first responders that provided that care. We found out that only 16% of our incidents that people are doing bystander CPR. So it is important to us and that's why I say it is not always about response, because we're normally not there when the emergency happens. So we're going to go out and teach, everywhere we can, people to have to learn hands-only CPR, so when they see something they can not only call us, they can do something to help their neighbor.

Speaker 2:

So that answers another question who should know CPR? And I think you're saying everyone, everyone.

Speaker 3:

Everyone should know Everyone from from the 10 year old to the 90 year old. Everybody can learn CPR and it makes a difference.

Speaker 2:

All right, and that's the I staying alive, right.

Speaker 3:

That's the beat. It's the beat that you use. We got several beats, several beats. As long as you keep the heart going, that's right. All right.

Speaker 2:

So another word for you. This time of year it's been, I think, in the news quite a bit nationally, but even over in the weather reports recently flooding yeah, flooding yeah. What comes to mind in terms of safety for flooding, what the people should be mindful of?

Speaker 3:

First pay attention to what we're telling you. Quite often, and people don't think of it this way. When you don't take heed to our safety tips, you put us at risk too.

Speaker 3:

Wow, and so they are moms and dads that have families and their families are concerned about them having to go on the harm's way. So the first thing I would say to the community is please listen to the safety tips we provide you, because we don't want to put our personnel harm's way if they don't have to go on the harm's way. But there are a lot of information. If you, you know, if you there, there are ways that you can sign up for the alerting. All you have to do is go to our emergency management homeland security website. There's information on how you sign up for alerts.

Speaker 3:

We have different tools in the county, whether that's different teams, swift water rescue teams. We know where the low areas are, where we have flooding that normally occurs. We have monitors that will give us information when flood waters are rising. We have tools that we use with the National Weather Service to alert us. Most of the time we have advance notice and so we give out that advance notice once we get it. Get it and we need to improve, and we just had this conversation with um, our senior policy group with emergency management, yesterday to talk about other creative ways to inform our community on why these things are important to you and that you have to heed them so you can stay out of harm's way.

Speaker 3:

So a lot of that is really paying attention to the safety tips that we put out.

Speaker 2:

All right. We've been pretty serious and spot on when it comes to public safety, which is rightfully so. You talk about lives and the safety of our residents of Montgomery County, maryland. You've been doing a fantastic job and you've come over and it's something significant about you, because I think I read that you're the first fire, the fire rescue chief, that was not promoted.

Speaker 3:

Within, from within. Yes, right, yes.

Speaker 2:

So what was your? What was the journey like? Well, I think you mentioned a little bit about it earlier.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So is there any difference coming in from without, as opposed to if you came through the Montgomery County hierarchy?

Speaker 3:

So you know, this is my third department. I, my, my department I started in first and retired from, was Prince George's County. Then, once I retired, I went over to the city of Alexandria, um, uh, and. And then, uh, when I left there, um, I eventually made my way here, um, uh. What I do my best is I look at my personal and professional life and there are transferable experiences, issues, solutions in both. So I'll give an example I have been a stepchild.

Speaker 3:

Oh okay, I've been a stepparent and that is very relatable to coming from the outside into an organization. There's already a culture that exists. I'm that new person coming in. They're trying to learn me, they want me to respect them, they want to get to know me so they can respect me.

Speaker 3:

A lot of those things are very similar in my personal and professional life, and so one thing I learned, because this is the second time I've come from the outside into an organization, so I've gotten a little bit wiser in that space. So one of the easiest things I do is I come with a sense of curiosity. That is the ability for people to be in a space that they're not trying to defend something because I might look like I'm throwing an opinion at them, right, so that disarms them from that space of having to defend whatever thing that I'm asking a question about. So curiosity is really something that helps us really understand, get to the same playing field and really be able to continue the journey together, opposed to coming in with an opinion about something and now there's always this issue or a tug of war with each other. So curiosity is one critical thing. One other thing I learned from being a fire chief for the second time is that I need to make less decisions.

Speaker 3:

I don't need to be the one making all the decisions. I should only make the hardest decision because everybody else that has had that opportunity couldn't make that decision. Everyone else should be making more decisions than me should be making more decisions than me.

Speaker 3:

What I do is provide the vision, the expectations, the support and the guardrails that we have to stay within so that I give them comfortability to be able to make that decision, and a lot of that has to do with having a culture in place that everybody has an opportunity to feel safe, even if they make a mistake with their decision.

Speaker 2:

Well, it sounds like Montgomery County has itself a leader as fire chief instead of just an administrator or manager. So that's what's happening. Moco, we appreciate Chief Corey Smedley for being here today. We thank you for your service to the county. We thank you for all the great things that you and your group of career folks and volunteers work diligently in the long hours and keeping us all safe. We want to ask all of you guys to make sure that you reach out to Fire and Rescue when needed at mcfrsorg, and we're always hiring, always hiring.

Speaker 3:

Come check us out.

Speaker 2:

Come check us out and you have a great boss to work for. And make sure you guys subscribe to the what's Happening MoCo podcast, like and share and all the great things, and we'll be seeing you more. Very, very soon We'll be at the Montgomery County Ecological Fairgrounds the nine best days of summer, coming up August 8th through, whenever nine days later will be, and I'm sure that we'll see Fire and Rescue's recruitment team there because they're there almost every year.

Speaker 1:

So check them out there as well. Thanks for listening to what's Happening, MoCo. Please subscribe via your favorite podcasting platform and follow us on Facebook. This podcast is brought to you by County Cable Montgomery, your source for news and information from the Montgomery County government. Connect with us via cable, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube by searching for County Cable MoCo.