Fairfax County’s Fire and Rescue Department is not your typical suburban cat-in-the-tree brigade. Among its considerable assets, which include some 1,400 uniformed employees, it is home base for Virginia Task Force 1, a crack search-and-rescue team that’s been deployed to terrorist bombings in Oklahoma City and Nairobi; earthquakes in Haiti, Turkey and Taiwan; and Hurricanes Katrina and Isabel, among other calamities far beyond county lines.
So it’s all the more concerning to learn that such a highly regarded department, by far the largest in Virginia, is beset by allegations of sexism, cyberbullying and unprofessional conduct. The concerns, fueled by the suicide of a female firefighter and other recent incidents, have prompted the county Board of Supervisors to hire an outside consultant to examine the agency, its work culture and its personnel practices.
Among the most jarring of the reports is that Guy Morgan, who heads the fire department’s Office of Professional Standards, is under investigation for posting lewd photos on his personal Facebook page. (A 6-foot snow penis and a gallery of nearly naked young women featured prominently in the sophomoric gallery.)
As some veteran firefighters noted, Morgan’s job description – in effect, he is the department’s standard-bearer of probity and good conduct – imparted a fox-guarding-the-hen-house aspect to the scandal. “The pictures are totally contradictory to the title he holds,”said Mike Mohler, president of the Virginia Professional Firefighters’ Association. Morgan, who is the subject of an internal probe, has been relieved of his investigative powers for the time being.
The supervisors’ call for outside help is well justified. The reports about Morgan followed news a few weeks earlier that firefighter Nicole Mittendorff hanged herself after being mocked and degraded in a series of sneering posts, allegedly written by her co-workers, in an online forum called Fairfax Underground. If Fairfax’s daunted fire department, or parts of it, has taken on the characteristics of a high school clique full of bullies, it’s time for a serious cultural do-over – and for some firings that convey that message loud and clear, provided that the culprits can be traced and credibly identified.
Mittendorff’s death prompted the fire chief, Richard Bowers, to initiate an internal investigation. The department must also fully cooperate with the outside auditor, when one is chosen, to get to the bottom of that event. Key questions include whether it was symptomatic of deeper rot in the department’s morale and work environment, whether adequate mental-health support is available for employees, and whether leadership has been effective in communicating basic expectations regarding workplace ethics and conduct.
The county’s fire department handles more than 90,000 calls annually; distractions are an unaffordable luxury. It’s the job of county leaders and Bowers to ensure that a highly professional force stays that way.
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