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Volunteer firefighters in the county have a good excuse for showing up late to work these days: saving lives.

Budget cuts that trimmed county career firefighters' hours this year have left volunteers to pick up the slack two hours a day at the beginning and end of their shifts, creating logistical problems for the men and women, who also have day jobs or school to think about, and concern among chiefs about potential gaps in coverage.

"We have been coping with it; it was a little rocky to start with," said Chief Jim Stanton of Kensington Volunteer Fire Department. Normal volunteer hours at the station would be 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., but volunteers are now expected to handle things from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m., and career and volunteer firefighters are staggering their shifts to meet demand.

"Unfortunately that hour at the beginning and end of the shift can be really difficult for folks coming from work and coming from school and getting back to work and getting back to school," said Chief Allan Platky of the Wheaton Rescue Squad.

Platky said the change in hours means calls that come late in the extended shift, around 6:30, prevent volunteers from leaving on schedule.

"It exposes them to the risk of being late for something early in the morning," Platky said. Coming in earlier for evening shifts is a problem too, miring the volunteers in traffic jams, forcing them to go straight from work to the station, and the next day from the station to work, so sometimes the firefighters don't go home for two days.

Other risks are exposed as well.

"The real concern that we at the rescue squad have is since during this transition there's inconsistent staffing, that eventually there's going to be some failures," Platky said.

So far that hasn't happened and the calls are being covered, Platky said, but the cut in hours for four career firefighters on duty at the Wheaton Rescue Squad in the mornings and evenings effectively reduces staff enough to remove one Advanced Life Saving and one Basic Life Saving rescue vehicle from duty.

The County Council Public Safety Committee will get a briefing from the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department, the Wheaton Rescue Squad and the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad on the impact of the cut backs Thursday.

"We clearly would like them to reconsider the staffing of, in our case, four positions," said Platky. He said all the calls are being handled, but the strain on the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department, Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad and the Wheaton Rescue Squad means strain on their overlap areas, near Connecticut Avenue and Saul Road in Kensington.

"If Kensington doesn't have it then we'll go, and if we don't have it then Bethesda goes," Platky said. "The potential is real that you're going to find a moment when you just don't have the resources."

Stanton said his volunteers have been coping with the changes.

"They took it on as a challenge and they have successfully adapted," said Stanton, who added the KFVD logged possibly a record number of volunteer hours in September with nearly 7,000. Which is good, because Stanton thinks additional commitment from the volunteers is going to continue.

"My budget expectation for next year is it's probably going to be worse next year than it is this year," Stanton said. "We are actually making plans internally to think of ways that we can step up to deal with this, because it's going to get worse before it gets better."