What are your local emergency services like?

[UKModMan]

You can look Cumbria Constabulary up and see that the town I live in, Barrow in Furness is the hardest area to police, because of this my police station has 2 dog units, 5 Volvo panda cars, 2 cage vans, 2 Armed Response Vehicles, a mobile CCTV van, a station van and we are getting more, there is a new station being built by our fire station that will hold our whole fleet as well as units from all over. Because the current station (which is getting emptied in September) was never meant to be a police station, it only have 7 cells, a small car park meaning we have to park in the Tesco car park because they're the only ones who let us, it's not ideal. We also police other towns, so the entire fleet isn't used just on us.

My fire station has good equipment for a town aswell ( remember I live in the biggest town in cumbria which features a dense urban area ). It has 2 pump appliances, 2 station officer vehicles, an ariel ladder and an Incident Response Vehicle ( we only have this as we have a BAE systems here producing nuclear subs, so there is a chance of terrorism and nuclear materials leaking which wouldn't be the best thing ).

The ambulance depot contains 4 ambulances, 2 RRVs as well as a small HART team (again, mainly for BAE) containing 2 ambulance IRUs and a response car.

What does your town / city have?

[Tomarhawk]

I live in two places (impressive isn't it) 

Monmouth - 

Gwent Police has any vehicle it can grab 

South Wales Fire - 

MAN rescue tender, Scania water tender (http://www.southwales-fire.gov.uk/English/operationalresponse/ourequipment/Pages/WaterTenderLadder2_vehicle.aspx) and mercades 4x4 

Welsh Ambulance Service have anything they can grab again, but seeing as the ambulance station is closed because its unsafe, they usually come from the depot 20 miles away.

RAF/MOD have a Sea King and a few typhoons and rescue aircraft dedicated to this area I believe.

 

Whitchurch 

Police - West Mercia Police (1 Vauxhall Zafria usually hangs around but any vehicles comes in and out) 

Fire - Fire station has 1 4x4 (keeps changing) and a SCANIA or Dennis appliance 

Ambulance is covered by Ross & Hereford ambulance stations, West Midlands Ambulance Service 

Water is covered by Royal Air Force rescue teams and the water rescue teams from Ross and Hereford fire stations

[UKModMan]

Nice, forgot to mention that we have an RNLI station with 1 massive boat not sure what it's called and an inshore rescue vehicle.

[Ghost Graphic Designs]

In Lisbon we have one professional fire department (RSB) separated in 5 divisions, each one with 1 HQ (main station) and 1 Station (smaller), 7 Volunteer Fire Departments and National EMS.

 

RSB Lisboa

• 5 companies - 4 regular and 1 special operations.
• Each Company HQ has atleast 5 vehicles ( light pumper with the company leader, urban pumper, tanker, ladder, intervention SUV (minor calls) and some others, mostly logistical support.
• Each Company Station has 1 urban pumper (can have more vehicles, if the space allows it) and some EMS (INEM) ambulances that use the station as an operational base.
• Every Company has a backup VFD, based on the area. For example a Company in Downtown has 2 VFDs as backup (Ajuda and BV Lisboa), because they're in the same operational area.
• Fire chiefs and higher ranking officials are dispatched after a 3rd alarm, they respond in their private vehicles (unmarked) or in marked vehicles (ACC).
• Equipment provided by the City Hall and free to all firefighters.
• All urban pumpers have AEDs and atleast 1 certified paramedic.

Volunteer FD's

• Each one based on a district (Cabo Ruivo, Beato, Ajuda, etc.).
• Not financed by the City Hall, all equipments come from donations and other activities (like providing rescue services in a football match, for example).
• Training, uniforms and protective gear are bought by the firefighter's own money.
• Respond only when CODU (EMS Dispatch) or SALOC (RSB dispatch) need assistance, i.e. INEM has no ambulances available so they send the closest VFD ambulance to that call.
• Some ambulances are crewed by paramedics (certified by INEM) but most of them are crewed by EMTs with AED training (part of the basic firefighter training).
• Minor EMS calls make up 70% of the total EMS responses of most VFDs.
• Sometimes, Nurses and Doctors volunteer to help out with large-scale EMS operations (like providing rescue services in football matches).

EMS (INEM)

• National EMS service.
• Certified paramedics operate the ambulances.
• Ambulances are based on small operational bases around the city. There's a wide range of types, from small garages to fire stations.
• There's one logistical base (Avenida de Roma) with more ambulances (normally 3 or 4), special vehicles (logistical support, mobile hospitals, psychologists and fly-cars) that respond citywide.
• Fly-cars are based on Hospitals, staffed by certified doctors and nurses from the Hospital's ER.
• Intensive Care Ambulances are based on INEM's HQ (that's also the EMS dispatch base), are crewed by 1 Paramedic and 1 Nurse and respond citywide.
• Children Emergency Ambulances are based on some Hospitals and Maternity Hospitals too, crewed by 1 Paramedic, 1 Doctor and 1 Nurse.

Portuguese Red Cross

• Totally Volunteer, INEM certified EMTs and Paramedics.
• Play an important role in mass-casualty incidents.
• Has ambulances that respond to medical emergencies in case INEM and VFDs aren't available.
• Are losing popularity, mostly due to the poor conditions of the equipments and vehicles.

Police

• Several police stations, nothing special.
• Public Safety Police (PSP) operates in urban environments and large cities.
• National Republican Guard (GNR) provides support in some operations, but they mostly operate in rural areas.
• There are regular patrol, traffic, criminal investigation, rapid intervention, intervention corps and special operations divisions.
• Criminal Investigation responds to regular calls, but are very important in the most dangerous parts of the city.
• Rapid Intervention teams patrol in Sprinter vans and can do everything from safety perimeters, minor "tactical" support to regular officers, riot control and redirecting traffic/civillians.
• Intervention Corps are a multitask (Riot/SWAT) force. Despite not having a direct action in high-risk situations (hostage situations and dangerous warrants), they can do pretty much the same as GOE (anti-terrorist team) and play an important role in the dangerous parts of the city.
• The Special Operations division (Special Police Unit / Unidade Especial de Polícia) is based in the outskirts of Lisbon (Quinta da Bela Vista) and have everything from anti-terrorist units, K9 intervention teams, bodyguards, bomb disposal squads and riot teams (Intervention Corps).
• GNR also has special divisions. Rescue teams (GIPS) that operate in USAR, Firefighting, High-Angle rescue, law enforcement and HAZMAT environments. Intervention teams (K9 and Riot Control). Special Operations teams (COE) that also have a joint anti-carjacking task-force with PSP. Highway Patrol (Brigada de Trânsito) that enforce laws on the portuguese highways.
• Bigger municipilatities (Lisboa, Oeiras, Porto, Aveiro, Matosinhos, etc.) have a Municipal Police force, manned by PSP officers and financed by the respective City Halls. They're armed and operate with PSP in most of the situations. They're also important in traffic enforcement operations.
• You also have Maritime Police (operated by the Portuguese Navy) and armed forces police (Navy, Air Force and Army).

Outside Lisbon, Fire Departments are 99% volunteer, which, in my opinion, is very bad because it sometimes puts people in danger, like, for example, having EMTs responding in a ALS ambulance instead of paramedics in places where rescue services have a +20 minutes response time. Our (national) system's a mess and I'm surprised that there aren't deaths due to its failures... yet.

[Michael King]

The most densely populated town in Cumbria is in fact Carlisle which would be the city with too many units to list.

Not to mention Whitehaven and Workington which serve the whole west coast and consist of a mixed fleet as Authorised Firearms Officers and Senior Firearms Officers use standard cars.

The West Coast of Cumbria also has The LARGEST police boat in the Cumbrian fleet which is held in the Whitehaven Marina dry dock along with 2 lifeboats in the harbour.

and not forgetting the ambulance depots at Egremont and Disington which have dealt with numerous Radioactive alarms With the fire brigade and the shooting of 25 people 

[Handsup!]

My local policing team consists of (this is the usual amount on duty not the entire amount) 10 officers. We have a carrier, I think two vans and a variety of cars. I think ARVs are minimal, we may not even have any, but that is unlikely. We borrow a lot of stuff from Greater Manchester Police and West Mids, such as forensic diving crews. As for fire service, we have two stations. One has two engines in use (parked in the engine bay), a diving team, community responder/RRV and I think a general purpose van.

[piloto19hh]

I live in a small town (14000 habitants or so) near Bareclona, in Spain.

Fire Dept: We have a volunteer FD (ADF - Forestal Defense Association) with a 4x4 and a MAN firetruck. As it's volunteer, almost always needs to come a professional FD to the scene (whose firehouse is at 15-20 mins far).

Police: We just have patrol units on our local police fleet, and in a normal day we have about 10 officers in patrol. To handle big incidents or if there's need to have more units, an investigation etc we have the "state police" which is the police force that handles all the territory of Catalonia.

EMS: We don't have local ambulances. Here only big cities have local ambulances. The ambulances (SEM - Medical Emergencies System) handle all Catalonia, and to my town, they come from a station or hospital which is at 5-10 min. For most urgent emergencies we also have a helicopter.

Enviado desde mi SM-G530FZ mediante Tapatalk

[willowfork fire capt]

I live in a small town of 3,500 in texas and my fire department has 2 stations and a total of 3 Engines, 2 Brush Units, 1 Tower Lader, 1 Chief Car, 1 Safety Officer, 2 Tankers, and 1 Rescue/Squad

 

The Police Department has 5 Regular Patrol Units, 1 K-9, 1 ERT Which is a Unmarked Tahoe with 4 Swat officers, 1 Supervisor.

[Fred03]

My town has about 600 people in it and has one full time police officer with another officer who rotates between police departments in the area to give officers time off. We have a sheriff and 3 deputies in the county as well as assorted state police units that wonder through. The NPS has about 5 rangers at any given time in the county although they stay almost exclusively in the park. We also have 2 game wardens in the county. My town has a VFD that consists of about 20 members of which about 6 are experienced in entry and 1 pumper, 1 rescue/pumper, 1 tanker and a brush truck. We only have one ambulance in our county (in the next town south of mine) so the local fire departments have EMRs that respond to medical incidents. The forestry department has a number of "militia firefighters" and 2 dozers in the county.

 

As you can imagine things can get pretty bad sometimes due to limited resources but we always make things work.

[999madtom]

I live in a place on the South Coast of England with about 80000 residents. 

Fire Service:

Covered by (18) Hampshire Fire and Rescue. Has two Water Ladder pumps. And one Water Rescue truck (got it after bad drowning). Covered by 17, 32, and 23 stations as well which have lots of special equipment but also can call in Major support around the County.

Medical:

Covered by South Central Ambulance Sevice. We have no ambulance station in the town I live in and I am covered by the Southern Logistics Hub (A big warehouse right next to a motorway) and lots of standby points. We are covered by 1 Air Ambulance which is HIOWAA (Hampshire and Isle Of Wight Air Ambulance). I have three hospitals nearby, one has a Minor Injures Unit one has a traditional A&E and all the normal hospital stuff and then go a couple more miles west along M27 and you'll get to the south's MTC (Major Trauma Centre) Southampton General which also has a big neurology section.

Police: 

My town is covered by Hampshire Constabulary. We have no "proper" police station in the town (it has a little desk and about two response vehicles run from it and about 4 PCSO's). We are mostly covered by a large police station a couple of miles away. We have no Police horses. We have a joint support unit with Thames Valley Police which has 4 ARV’s, Dog units, FSU’s and horses.

Coastguard:

We have two Coastguard rescue vehicles covering us and one Coastguard Helicopter. Both are based on a little airfield on the outskirts. We have one independent (Not RNLI) inshore Rescue Service in the town which has one inshore lifeboat, one very small lifeboat, lots of canoe’s and other equipment and one Landrover (With Blue lights and sirens). 

[Ace]

I live where 4 municipalities are very close to each other so there's a lot of mutual aid going on. Besides all the listed bellow, there's also military bases that have it's own police and fire departments within them.

FIRE DEPARTMENT

Municipality 1;

Station 1:

Engine 1 2010 Spartan Gladiator Classic

Engine 11 1999 Spartan Gladiator

Ladder 1 2005 Spartan Gladiator/Smeal Midmount tower

Rescue 1 2009 Spartan Gladiator Classic

Tanker 1 International S2674/Superior

Battalion 1 2004 Ford Excursion

Brush 1 2008 Ford F550 4x4

Training Van Chevrolette Express

Station 2: 

Engine 2 2007 Spartan Gladiator Classic

Tanker 2 1976 Hendrickson

Engine 2001 KME Excel

Station 3:

Ladder 3 2010 Spartan Gladiator Classic

Engine 32 1989 Pierce Lance

Truck 606 1969 LaFrance

Municipality 2;

Fire Station:

Engine 1 2009 Sutphen Monarch

Engine 11 1990 Stuphen DS4000

Ladder 1 2002 Stuphen

Battalion 1 2010 Chevrolet Silverado

Car 401 Toyota Camry

Car 404 Chevrolet Canyon

Car 408 Chevrolet Silverado

Municipality 3;

Fire Station:

Engine 1 - 2007 Spartan Diamond

Engine 11 - 1988 Mack MR688P

Ladder 1 - 2010 Spartan Gladiator

Battalion 1 - 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe

Rescue 1 - 2005 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 pickup with custom storage

Car 104 - 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe

Municipality 4;

Station 1:

Engine 1 - 2006 Spartan Gladiator Classic LFD / Rosenbauer / General

Ladder 1 - 2010 Spartan Gladiator Classic MFD / Rosenbauer Raptor / Metz Aerial

Rescue 1 - 2009 Spartan Metro Star / Rosenbauer / General

Battalion  - 2011 Chevrolet Suburban

Engine 11 - 1993 Duplex D500ALSR / Anderson

Foam 1 - 1973 Thibault PWT817G / 1996 Anderson

Fire Investigations - 2014 Ford Transit Connect

Truck 37 - 1980 International S2500 / FD Shops / HIAB Crane / Flatbed

Utility - 2013 Ford F250 Super Duty

Utility - Ford F250 Super Duty

Car - Chevy Equinox

Fire Prevention - Chevy S10

Fire Prevention - Chevy S10

Incident Command Post - 1966 Chevrolet Bookmobile

Station 2:

Engine 2 - 2006 Spartan Gladiator Classic LFD / Rosenbauer / General

Ladder 2 - 1990 E-One Hurricane tower

Engine 21 - 1993 Duplex D500ALSR / Anderson

Engine 4 - 1986 Mack MC / Anderson

Station 3:

Engine 3 - 2011 Spartan Gladiator Classic / Rosenbauer Viper

Engine 31 - 1996 Spartan Gladiator / Anderson

Tech Rescue - 20?? Ford Excursion (Ex. Battalion 1)

Tech Rescue Trailer - ?

Tender 1 - 1991 Western Star / 1991 Omco / 2012 FD Shops

Hose Tender 1 - 1971 International F2110A

Station 4: Storage Facility

 

AMBULANCE SERVICE

Covered by BCAS

 

POLICE

4 municipalities + RCMP

[EmergencyFan97]

I live in a mixed rural/suburban/light urban county in South Carolina.  There's about 22 fire departments in the county, with most of them being all-volunteer.  My local department is an ISO class 10 department due to politics and bad management. They've got 3 stations and something like 4 engines, 3 brush trucks, 3 tankers, and a rescue.  I'm not familiar with their operations as I wasn't on that department.  The next-closest department, Eureka, has around 15 interior-certified firefighters, one station, and runs two engines, two tankers, and two brush trucks.  They're a Class 9.  Most of the departments around here average around a Class 5, except for the departments in the more urban/suburban areas.  Mutual aid is automatic for structure fires and usually features two or three agencies responded as MA to the original department.

 

EMS is provided by the 911 Provider Network, which consists of 10 ambulances operated by Aiken County EMS, one(or two, it varies) operated by Aiken Rescue, and two daytime trucks operated by SouthStar.  ACEMS is the taxpayer-funded county-operated 911 EMS agency.  Aiken Rescue is a non-profit 911 EMS and special events EMS service operated solely off of donations and billing patients.  It is the oldest EMS agency in the county.  SouthStar is a large for-profit corporation.

 

Law enforcement is provided throughout most of the county by the Aiken County Sheriff's Office.  Aiken, North Augusta, and Burnettown operate their own law enforcement agencies.  Wagener also has a single officer on duty at the time.  SCHP has a few troopers that rotate through.

[Mitja Hrovat]

Im from 5th bigest city in Slovenia (30000 people).

We have a police station with 2 vans and 3 or 4 cars. If is necesery police came from nerby cities. (5min away).

We have a small hospital and there is maybe 10 amboulance viachles plus doctor viachle. If is urgent the doctors from hospital go with paramedic on the field. Sometimes they call helicopter from the biggest hospital in Slovenia (we use police helicopters for medical transports). The helicopter need 20 min in one direction.

We have 5 volunteer firehoises very close to the ity or in the city. In radious 15min its another 3 firehouses. in one firehouse are always 3-4 proffesional firefighters. They have 2 truck with wather (one 5000l and one with 2500l of wather), 2 small technical vans, van for people transport, leadher (35m high) and truck for car acidents and acidents with dangerous gases, oil... This is the biggest firehouse in our city. Proffesional firefighters are in nerby city 20 min away and they never came in our city, so everithing is on volunteer firefighters. Im also firefighter in one of the firehouse. We have truck with 2500l wather, van with hooses and other stuff and a van for people. In other firehouses have similar equipment like our firehouse. Every firehouse have own teritory but if its necesary other firehouses camo for help.

[ThatOneIowan]

I live in a pretty rural part of Iowa...

 

The town I live in has a police force of 3 - the chief patrols days, the officer patrols nights and the assistant chief patrols days/nights depending on when the other is off. Take home cars. The town cop is on call between midnight and 8am officially, but generally the day cop starts hitting the streets before that. 

 

Fire department is volunteer, don't know much about it except I saw our ambulance being towed by a pickup truck on a gravel road a while ago.

 

The sheriff's office usually has two or three deputies on at a time for the county (just under 600 sq mi) 

 

We have two other incorporated towns, one has usually 4 officers on at any time, and the other town is similar to my own. Fire protection for the county is divided between various volunteer departments and I think Boone City Fire is paid but not sure. EMS operates out of the county hospital versus the FD but FD has first responders and some EMTs.

[UKModMan]

The most densely populated town in Cumbria is in fact Carlisle which would be the city with too many units to list.

Not to mention Whitehaven and Workington which serve the whole west coast and consist of a mixed fleet as Authorised Firearms Officers and Senior Firearms Officers use standard cars.

The West Coast of Cumbria also has The LARGEST police boat in the Cumbrian fleet which is held in the Whitehaven Marina dry dock along with 2 lifeboats in the harbour.

and not forgetting the ambulance depots at Egremont and Disington which have dealt with numerous Radioactive alarms With the fire brigade and the shooting of 25 people 

Carlisle is a city I believe.

[TheCadetForce]

In my Town

Fire & Rescue:

Suffolk Fire & Rescue Service - Operating 1x retained pump.

                                                - Mutually covered by retained crews from other villages/towns and Wholetime crews from neighboring Ipswich or Bury.

Ambulance Service:

NHS East Of England Ambulance Service - Operating one RRV in from local Doctors.

                                                                   - Multiple Community First Responders

                                                                   - Ambulances sent from either West Suffolk Hospital in Bury or Ipswich Hospital

Police Service:

Suffolk Constabulary - Medium sized Police station

                                  - 6/7 response cars single crewed

                                  - All other services from Ipswich or Bury

                                  - An ARV can usually be found at the station, only on certain days.. I think the crew like whichever shift is on those days.

[TheAxeMan33]

I live in a quite small town in Pennsylvania. We have a fully volunteer Fire Department and partial Volunteer EMS that is apart of our Fire Department. We have 2 BLS Ambulances that are able to provide mutual aide if needed. Right-now we're running with 2 Engines, 1 Ladder, 1 Command [Chief is always in-possession of the Command vehicle], our Ladder runs as BLS in-case the fire department next to us cannot dispatch their ALS to assist, it might not be a ALS rig but it's better than nothing. Usually there's 2-3 Police officers on-duty at one time, 2 on patrol in separate cruisers and 1 usually handles the headquarters.