What Is a Fire Station?

A fire station (also called a fire hall, fireman’s hall or firehouse) is a building which houses firefighting apparatus and equipment as well as living and working space for the firefighters who operate it. It also contains facilities for maintenance and training. Most fire stations are operated by volunteer or part-time firefighters. A few are run by full-time salaried fire departments.

In the United States, fire stations are often named for the primary fire company and/or apparatus housed there, such as “Engine 49”. Other fire stations may be named based on their location in a settlement or neighborhood or they may have other identifiers such as names or numbers. Fire stations have garages for parking the fire trucks and related vehicles, but they usually also have other buildings or areas for storing equipment, including personal protective gear, fire hoses, tools and spare parts for the vehicles. They often have a fire hydrant, a water pump and other equipment for providing the firefighters with water when they are on a call. They also have a fire pole, or sometimes a ladder tower, for firefighters to climb up and down while fighting a fire.

A number of other facilities can be found at most fire stations such as the firefighting equipment storage warehouse, the headquarters office for the fire department, the fire chief or fire marshal’s office, a training facility, a rig testing area and the living quarters where the firefighters sleep when not on duty. The living quarters are usually built above the fire truck garage, but modern stations may have the firefighters’ quarters on the same level as the garage.

The fire station is the base of operation for the firefighters when they are on-duty. The firefighters respond to calls via sirens, pagers or radios and then drive their fire trucks to the scene of the emergency. They are usually assigned to one of several shifts, or watches, which are identified by the color of their uniforms. The watch assignments are based on the type of incident they will respond to.

During a fire or other emergency, the firefighters must perform a number of tasks such as search and rescue, structural collapse assessment, and water drop techniques in order to mitigate the effects of the crisis. Each task requires an extensive amount of training to perform safely and effectively.

Tactical firefighting relies on a combination of various options to achieve tactical success on the fireground, including 3D offensive water-fog; solid or straight stream; indirect attack; and tactical ventilation such as open-up, close down and PPV methods. The experienced firefighter recognizes which option(s) are most appropriate under specific conditions and executes accordingly without compromising safety or endangering the effectiveness of the tactics. These options are based on the principle of the fire tetrahedron, which includes the three components required for fire to exist: heat, fuel and oxygen. If any one of these elements is removed, the fire will cease. This concept is used in the design of buildings and other structures to limit the spread of fires and minimize loss of life and property.