Our Team
The Department's Organization
123 full time personnel staff four divisions within the fire department, which are managed by the department's administration. Those divisions include:
- Operations
- Prevention
- Training
- Emergency
Operations Division
The operations division is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to protect the city's citizens, visitors, and businesses when an emergency occurs. The operations division staffs 7 engines, 2 truck companies, and 2 battalion chiefs.
The operations division responds to over 10,000 calls per year. These calls include fires, emergency medical calls, fire alarms, flammable gas leaks, hazardous materials leaks, technical rescues, water and ice rescues, vehicle accidents, aircraft emergencies, and many other types of calls.
In addition to responding to calls, these crews spend almost half of their on duty time preventing emergencies by performing fire prevention inspections, providing public education, teaching CPR, and other community risk reduction activities.
When not responding to calls or reducing community risk, crews train to meet their minimum continuing education requirements. Each member of the operations division is expected to have at least 248 hours of training each year. Members train in firefighting, emergency medicine, hazardous materials, technical rescue, fire investigation, and driver's training.
Fire Prevention Division
The fire prevention division has 6 people working to make Fargo a safer city. The members of the prevention division:
- Develop and coordinate community risk reduction programs
- Conduct inspections in higher risk businesses and residences (e.g. hospitals and day cares)
- Review plans prior to construction to ensure the building will comply with fire codes
- Perform fire investigations in conjunction with the operations division and law enforcement investigators
Training Division
The training division is divided into suppression training and EMS training. All fire department members are certified to at least the Emergency Medical Technician level and firefighters must be certified to Firefighter II before finishing their probationary year. This keeps our training division busy with:
- Recruit classes
- Continuing education in EMS, fire response, auto extrication, technical rescue, hazardous materials, and emergency driving
- Researching and testing new ideas
Emergency Management
The city's emergency services coordinator works within the fire department. The emergency services coordinator works city wide to:
- Provide emergency management through the Emergency Operations Center during an emergency
- Work with partnering agencies including Cass County Emergency Management and the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services
- Develop and provide city wide training exercises
- Oversee and keep emergency operation plans current