Fire Suppression

Practice Burn, Bay Area Wildland Mutual Response Drill, San Jose, CA, June 1998

Why aren't you moving faster? For safety reasons, firefighters have standing orders never to run on the fireground. There is too much to trip over, especially when carrying heavy, sharp objects, wearing lots of heavy gear, and with limited vision.

The Department is configured into four battalion districts. First-call equipment is deployed to deliver initial fire attack and EMS services within seven (7) minutes at least 90 percent of the time. Ladder trucks are located to respond on all first and second alarms in designated urban areas. Engines respond in lieu of a truck in wildland-urban areas. A rescue or hazmat unit fills out an alarm. Brush patrols are located with trucks for "select-call" response and staffed for "patrol duty" as determined by the Burn Index (BI), measured at a Remote Automated Weather Station (RAWS) and/or chief officer. The hazardous materials vehicle responds throughout the department and as a mutual aid resource county wide. A chief officer responds on all rescue and full alarm responses.

A standard first-alarm assignment for structure fires consists of two engine companies, a ladder truck company, a rescue or hazardous materials company and a Battalion Chief totaling fifteen (15) persons. On working fires the response is increased to three engines companies, one ladder truck company, a Hazmat and Breathing Support company, one rescue company, two Battalion Chiefs, a Safety Officer, and a Duty Investigator, totalling twenty five (25) persons. A second-alarm would add another two engine companies, one truck company, one rescue company, and an additional Chief Officer; total staffing for two alarms is then forty (40) persons. Wildland-urban interface companies are trained and equipped to provide structure protection and limited initial attack on wildland incidents. A brush alarm for vegetation fires in wildland/urban interface areas consists of two engine companies, a Type 3 engine and a Battalion Chief, totaling nine (9) persons.

Daily emergency response staffing consists of seventy (70) career fire personnel on a 24 hour shift assignment plus one (1) 40 hour Battalion Chief in Battalion 12, operating twenty one (21) pieces of first-line apparatus, plus three (3) Battalion Chief command vehicles, operating from seventeen (17) fire stations. The Department employs a form of "peak load staffing" by staffing patrols and other apparatus during high fire danger periods, during storms and anticipated flooding, for special events, etc. In daily operations during declared "Fire Season," patrols function in tandem with ladder trucks during daytime hours. This basically means that during the summer months, when the probability of a brush fire is high, the truck and patrol vehicle go out on calls as a pair. The Department also employs an automatic move-up system to provide coverage of core stations in the event of simultaneous alarms. This guarantees continuous coverage of the entire area served, should another response be required during an alarm.