Fire, EMS and police services in your area?

[steve-in-kville]

Random poll/thread.

Volunteer fire and ambulance crews? Sheriff's Department, local police or state police?

Post and discuss.

Me first...

At the moment, all three fire companies that service our area are 100% volunteer. Our local ambulance has a paid crew from 6am to 6pm, with overnight being volunteer. As of now, they are the only one in the county that operates a "hybrid" staffing system.

Police wise, two local municipalities abolished their police forces in the last 10+ years. We now rely on Pennsylvania State police (PSP). They have a sub-station here in the township.

A few fire companies have consolidated in the past few years and I see more of that happening, especially on the EMS side. But that is a story for another day.

[Ken]

We live in suburban Clark County Washington (north of Portland). The county has a population of about 500,000.

We are in the city limits and so professional fire, police, and EMS, no volunteers. But is a big county that stretches way up into the mountains and some of the smaller towns do have volunteer fire departments. https://www.clarkfire13.org/ They do not have volunteer EMS but they do have volunteer EMS assistants who I guess ride along. https://www.northcountryems.org/volunteers The county sheriff covers all the incorporated parts of the county and I think some of the very smallest towns that are too small to have their own police.

I haven't really heard about any shortages of workers. At least it hasn't been in the news. They are continually floating bonds for new fire stations and such, at least it seems like it. But the county is growing pretty fast so that might be reasonable.

Something we have out here that you might not have so much of is volunteer SAR teams with dogs. A lot of mountaineering and backcountry ski types are really into raising and training SAR dogs and they form volunteer SAR teams that coordinate with the local sheriff. https://ccsosarwa.org/world-of-sar-inde ... sar-local/

[Josh]

Volunteer fire district which often holds fundraisers. No local police other than in a small village, so we rely on the county sheriff (whom I never see around). Occasionally the state highway patrol writes tickets on the state routes.

EMS is handled by both the fire district and by private EMS companies.

[QuietlyListening]

I live in the county- there are about 4 fire stations with EMS trucks at each and they are volunteer at night and weekends- think there may be paid personnel on the week days but the EMS that can do anything really is paid and at the one station only. Not sure about the rest of the county

The one city- large one- in the county has it's own fire/rescue stations forget how many and all paid.

Police are county and city and then a few towns within the county have police too.

We pay dues to the county fire/ems yearly otherwise they charge you for runs- however we still paid for the run when my husband fell from the roof. Supposedly they would reimburse us but we were never able to get hold of anyone who could deal with it so let it go.

[steve-in-kville]

No local police other than in a small village, so we rely on the county sheriff (whom I never see around). Occasionally the state highway patrol writes tickets on the state routes.

In our area and surrounding counties, the sheriff's departments are stewards of the county court system and keep busy serving papers and transporting prisoners to court and such. Although they are certified and commissioned, they almost never "work the road."

State constables on the other hand.... I'd trust a dirty prison guard before I would a constable. But that is a story for another day

[Josh]

Our sheriffs do both warrant work but are also the highest peace officer of the land, even over state police, as they are elected directly by the people. They have jurisdiction over all matters in a county (including cities).

[steve-in-kville]

Our sheriffs do both warrant work but are also the highest peace officer of the land, even over state police, as they are elected directly by the people. They have jurisdiction over all matters in a county (including cities).

Here it is the state police that reigns king. But we have a lot of consolidations of smaller police departments taking place, or municipalities contract from a neighboring department to serve their area.

Even with fire marshals, if property damage meets a certain dollar level, there is a death, or the fire is deemed suspicious in nature, the state police fire marshal takes over investigating the incident.