Service Delivery

Fire: First and foremost, fire departments provide fire suppression services. However, the necessity of this service is declining with better building materials, fire prevention strategies, and code enforcement. Although fires have declined, municipal governments are not willing to only provide fire department staff in times of emergency. Therefore, fire departments have ventured into other ‘fire and life safety’ services that involve managing risk of life and property.

EMS: EMS services are provided by firefighters who are also licensed emergency medical technicians (EMT). Fire departments may or may not provide transportation services for medical emergencies, and departments that do not directly provide the service have an arrangement with one or more emergency ambulance service. EMT’s determine a patient’s medical issue and are able to provide basic life saving measure that are noninvasive. EMS services can be provided by licensed EMT’s on a fire apparatus or a special EMS vehicle.

Code Enforcement: Fire departments have made great advancements in advocating for comprehensive fire codes, and are responsible for their enforcement through inspections. Fire codes are designed as life-saving measures by incorporating containment devices to slow the spread of fire long enough for occupants to safely evacuate. Fire departments employ inspector personnel to carry out regular code inspection, and to advise city officials and developers in designing new projects. The effectiveness of fire departments in saving lives and averting property damage is very much determined by inspection efforts.

Fire Prevention: In recent decades, increased emphasis has been placed upon fire prevention programs. These come in multiple forms including education programs and school outreach, fire safety community events, and voluntary residential inspections. Of course, the best way to fight fires is to prevent them from happening in the first place, and to educate residents about how to minimize risks. Prevention education serves the dual purpose of promoting community engagement to promote trust between city services and residents. Nowhere is this more important than between citizens and public safety officers.

Firefighters are constantly employing fire prevention techniques through official and unofficial ‘pre-planning.’ Through ‘district familiarization’ firefighters visit public and commercial sites to become familiar with building layouts, traffic patterns, and to identify any unique hazards they may encounter during an emergency response. Becoming acquainted with service delivery zones allows firefighters to respond promptly and efficiently with less uncertainty, which can save lives and prevent more severe damage.

Emergency Preparedness: The public relies heavily on first responders during emergencies, and the more substantial the incident or disaster, the greater the need for assistance delivered by the fire department and others with public safety missions. Fire departments need to be prepared to respond to earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards and ice storms, floods, power outages, and extreme heat, which require improvised strategies and tactics, revise deployment protocols, and extended work hours. Departments develop standard operating guidelines (SOGs) for the type(s) of extreme conditions that are most common in their area. Many, if not most, of the operational challenges that the fire services face during disasters can be anticipated and planned for while there is time to resolve any policies that would arise concerning operation procedures.

There are common topics across the range of emergencies. For example, preparing for extended operations, coordinating with emergency operations centers (EOCs), ensuring personnel safety, working out logistical challenges, caring for mass casualties, providing services under challenging conditions, all require strategies with which fire and rescue personnel should become familiar. Disaster assistance can be requested by state or federal governments during emergencies when local resources are exhausted or require additional support. However, this assistance normally arrives only after executing a series of procedures, and takes time. Communities need to be self-reliant for at least the first 3 days and possibly longer.

Given this fact, it is critical to plan accordingly and fire departments are responsible for creating plans and training for these events so that response can be second-nature. When a natural disaster strikes, the demands for fire department services surge. The larger the scope and scale of the emergency, the larger the surge and the longer it lasts. Personnel and equipment are the two key elements of emergency preparedness planning, and creating mutual-aid plans describe how a state (or region within a state) will mobilize personnel and equipment to organize and administer those resources. If not in place already, fire departments should have a system set up so they can obtain and sustain incoming personnel quickly from outside agencies.

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is the template for organizing disaster response and is mandated by the federal government for federal agencies and those non-federal agencies that receive Homeland Security funds. In NIMS, there are specific position descriptions covering all the functions and tasks involved in supporting disaster response, public safety, and recovery.