Overview
The Colorado Springs Fire Department has staffed emergency response resources deployed throughout the city in order to reach the site of an incident within 8 minutes from the time of the call 90% of the time. If an emergency is not primarily law enforcement related, the CSFD is generally the agency that responds to your 911 call for help. The department fully staffs 22 engine companies, 6 truck companies, 1 hazmat Team, 1 Heavy Rescue Team, and 3 medical Squads. In addition, the department has 11 brush trucks for wildland firefighting, 1 air supply truck, 1 hazardous materials decontamination vehicle, and 1 hose wagon that can also be staffed with personnel and dispatched to emergencies.
The CSFD is the primary agency to respond to the following:
- Fires in structures, motor vehicles, wildland, and any other location where uncontrolled fire is taking place. All engine companies are trained and equipped to fight fires of all types, but the department also maintains a team of individuals with specialized training and equipment for use at wildland fires.
- Emergency Medical System (EMS) – The Colorado Springs Fire Department is the first response agency to every type of perceived emergency involving the health of people in the community. All firefighters maintain a minimum medical certification of Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and are capable of providing basic level medical care including Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), automatic heart defibrillation (AED), and first aid for injuries. Most of the department’s response units also have firefighters with the certification of Paramedic (PM) and are able to provide more highly advanced care including heart monitoring, intravenous drug therapies, and some surgical interventions for critical victims of trauma or medical emergencies.
- The CSFD has the capability to respond to a vast variety of rescues, including automobile extrication and other transportation rescues, building collapse or other confined spaces, swift water (flood), high-angle (rock rescue), fires, and machinery entrapment.
- Hazardous Materials response: response to and mitigation of the unplanned release of dangerous chemicals into the air, ground, or water. The CSFD is the federally Designated Emergency Response Agency (DERA) for the city. To fulfill this critical responsibility, the department maintains a fully staffed and trained Hazmat Team. This group of individuals also serves as the primary Safety Group in all major fire emergencies in the city.
- Public Service calls for help: electrical hazards such as downed wires or faulty appliances sparking and endangering people, basement flooding into electrical outlets, animal rescues, assisting a person with disabilities back into a bed or wheelchair when no one else can assist, children locked in automobiles. These are just a sampling of the wide variety of emergencies which take place in the community that don’t fall into the categories listed above.
- Plan reviews are conducted on all commercial and hillside homes in the City to ensure compliance with local fire code.
- Inspections are conducted in newly constructed, and all existing, buildings in town that fall under regulation of the 2015 fire code.
- Hazardous materials enforcement, including review of processes, storage, and inspections takes place.
- Around half a million dollars is collected annually from hazardous functions and operations which are inspected and permitted.