Fire & Rescue

Today, the department continues to operate a combination department with 39 career personnel and many volunteers, which makeup three divisions. The Operations Division is balanced in three platoons of firefighters that work shift work of on-duty for 24 hours and then off-duty for 48 hours. The three platoons staff two stations and respond to emergency and non-emergency request for service calls. The Life Safety Division is comprised of the fire marshal, who coordinates the fire prevention aspect of the fire service.

In 2001 the department experienced another transition as the city manager had initiated some reorganization and placed the Code Enforcement and Animal Services into the department. The additional responsibilities required the department to create another division in order to supervise these services. The Division of Community Services was created and was supervised by the fire marshal.

In 1998, the department promoted a new fire chief after the present chief resigned. The city also bought additional property in the Florida Shores subdivision and built a fire station there. With the new station, there was a need to hire additional staffing. New members were hired with the majority of them coming from the volunteer ranks. The fire chief felt it was important to try and hire the volunteers since they already had demonstrated their dedication to the city and knew the procedures.

By 1995 the city continued to grow, as did the number of emergency incidents. Since the majority of the incidents were medical in nature and most of them required advanced life support, the city had decided to enhance the services with the addition of paramedics. With several members already having completed their paramedic training it was only a matter of obtaining appropriate equipment and licensing. The department identified the task as one of their goals and later began offering the enhanced services to the community on Dec. 25, 1995.

In March of 1991, the city hired additional personnel to staff a single apparatus 24 hours days Monday through Friday and left the weekends and holidays for volunteers to cover. This staffing schedule remained for one year until the staff lieutenant transferred to the operations division which provided the personnel to staff a single two-person engine 24 hours a day, seven days a week.