Overview

Municipal fire departments provide public safety to a community in a variety of ways. Historically they were created as a means of fighting fires, but as fire prevention methods have become more proficient and fire rates have declined they have expanded their services. Today, fire departments also provide emergency medical services (EMS), hazardous waste removal, code enforcement and fire inspection, and emergency preparedness among other things. However, fire departments vary greatly in their scope of services, which is largely based on the size of the population they serve.