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The fundraising tactics of two county fire departments are being questioned by residents who say recent mailings requesting donations from the public were misleading.

Jim Winkler of Bethesda said he resigned after four years from the Board of the Bethesda Fire Department in September after finding no audience for his complaints that the department, which receives all its staff, training, equipment, fuel and utility funding from the county, should not be soliciting donations from the public. Winkler also worked for 12 years as a firefighter in New York.

Meanwhile, Debbie Nathanson of Aspen Hill said she was confused by a Kensington Volunteer Fire Department fundraiser that looked like the "Fill the Boot" campaign that raises money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, but which was actually raising money for the department.

The Bethesda Fire Department sent out a mailing in October that stated "We need your generous contributions to continue offering you the best possible fire protection!" and suggested donations of $35, $55, $75 or a fill-in-the-blank amount.

But Winkler said the Bethesda Fire Department hasn't really been a volunteer fire department since the 1970s when the county took over staffing. Its board, comprised of volunteers, is operating as "an anachronism," Winkler said. He said the fundraising campaign probably diverts money away from organizations like the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Volunteer Rescue Squad, which is entirely funded by donations, and implies that the public needs to donate to expect fire protection.

"If you've got $50 to give to the fire department and you get both these mailings (from the BFD and from the B-CC Rescue Squad) you're going to split it and give each $25," Winkler said.

The Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service is a combination system that uses both paid career firefighters and volunteer firefighters at its stations. Career firefighters receive funding from the county while the volunteers have to raise funds, and the ratio of career to volunteer firefighters varies from station to station.

Winkler said he tried to "change things from the inside," even drafting a Memorandum of Understanding that was presented to the county about the county officially taking over facilities maintenance of the three Bethesda fire stations owned by Bethesda Fire Department, Inc., a proposal that he said was entertained by the county but "went nowhere" with the Bethesda Fire Department's board. He said he thinks members of the board are "misdirected, not nefarious."

"My basic objection is that they're being insincere and if the community understood what they really were, they would probably spend their money elsewhere," Winkler said.

Grant Davies, president of the board of Bethesda Fire Department, Inc., said the money serves a valuable function, such as purchasing thermal imaging devices that help to locate a person in a burning building, as well as fans to clear smoke and other equipment. He said two of his children have served on the B-CC Rescue Squad and the board is not trying to take anything away from that organization, but is trying to provide the highest quality of service and compensate for "inadequate" funding from the county.

"Our fundraising is purely focused on being able to provide that," said Davies. The department raised about $50,000 in donations last year, in addition to the annual county allotment of more than $129,000. Davies said the Bethesda Fire Department has raised and spent $400,000 in addition to what it receives from the county for firefighting equipment in the past eight years.

Davies said "there is no guarantee" of getting money from the county to purchase extra equipment, and the department also applies for grants from the Senator William H. Amoss Fire, Rescue, and Ambulance Fund, which provides money for emergency rescue services.

Assistant Fire Chief Scott Graham, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service, said "Pretty much the county carries [the Bethesda Fire Department's] whole load," but said the organization is also "entitled" to solicit donations. He said the county would not cut the department's allotment due to its fundraising efforts because there is "no way of guaranteeing a revenue stream that way."

Graham said the county's combined system of mixing volunteer and career firefighters means that on the spectrum there are stations like the BFD that are mostly county-run and others that are mostly volunteer-run, but they all count as volunteer stations.

Graham said generally the County Fire and Rescue Service doesn't get involved with fundraising tactics, although County Fire Chief Richie Bowers did call the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department to question its judgment when complaints were raised about one of its fundraisers, a "Pass the Boot" campaign that launched around Labor Day, the same time of year union firefighters collect money at street corners for the Muscular Dystrophy Association in the "Fill the Boot" campaign.

Nathanson said she got the "Pass the Boot" mailing and initially mistook it for an extension of "Fill the Boot."

"It looked like the exact same thing but when I opened it, it wasn't," she said. She said she "greatly appreciates" the volunteer firefighters, but found the campaign misleading. She said in the past she has also felt pressured to donate to the KFVD during door-to-door fundraising campaigns.

"There's definitely an implication that if you don't donate there won't be anyone available to help you if you have a fire," Nathanson said.

"I value the fire department greatly, it's very hard to complain about," Nathanson said.

Graham called the timing "kind of odd."

The letter, signed by KFVD President Steven Semler, read "The traditional ‘Pass the Boot' to motorists at stop lights and stop signs has never been one of my favorites. During sweltering summer heat, it puts our courageous firefighters and EMTs at risk, slows traffic, and it doesn't give us an opportunity to explain why your support of this Volunteer Fire Department is so critical to the continued success of our world-class service."

"I don't know if the people who respond to it know that it's not the same thing, I'm not sure, or maybe they don't care," Nathanson said. "But I do think they implied it was the same thing."

Jim Stanton, station chief at the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department, said "Fill the Boot" has been used by fire departments nationwide for many types of fundraisers and that the confusion with the Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraiser was "unintentional." He said the KFVD recently switched fundraising vendors, and the mailing was supposed to go out earlier in the summer but was delayed.

"We did not intend to offend anyone or slight their efforts," said Stanton, who said volunteers from Kensington Station 5 joined their career colleagues in raising money for the "Fill the Boot" campaign outside the station. "If it appeared to be that way, I apologize. That was not our intent and I don't think we will use that terminology again."