A fire department or fire brigade is a public or private organization that provides fire protection for a certain jurisdiction, which typically is a municipality, county, or fire protection district. A fire department usually contains one or more fire stations within its boundaries, and may be staffed by career firefighters, volunteer firefighters, or a combination thereof.
Fire departments are organized in a system of administration, services, training, and operations.
* Administration is responsible for supervision, budgets, policy, and human resources.
* Service offers protection, safety, and education to the public.
* Training creates skilled people with the knowledge to perform their duties.
* Operations performs the tasks to successfully save the public from harm.
A fire department is normally set up where it can have fire stations and sophisticated fire apparatus strategically deployed throughout the area under its control so that dispatchers can send fire engines, fire trucks, or ambulances from the fire stations closest to the incident. Larger departments have branches within themselves to increase efficiency, composed of volunteers, support, and research.
* Volunteers give advantages to the department in a state of emergency.
* Support organizing the resources within and outside of the department.
* Research is to give advantages in new technologies for the department.
The fire department’s jurisdiction is organized by the governmental body that controls the department, although there are private fire departments as well. This comes from a municipality, county, prefecture, state, or nation type of government. The most common type of government control is at the municipality level. Within the jurisdiction the department would setup its organization. This deals with the placement of fire stations, equipment, and personnel within the area of control. Fire departments periodically survey their jurisdiction areas and use the data for redeploying proper coverage. This data comes from travel time, range from station, and/or a population survey. This brings equal service to the entire community and gives the department efficient places to launch operations.
The very first fire department was formed in Ancient Rome by Egnatius Rufus who used his slaves to provide a free fire service. These men fought fires using bucket chains and also patrolled the streets with the authority to impose corporal punishment upon those who violated fire-prevention codes.
Fire departments were again formed by insurance companies in the 18th and 19th century. Benjamin Franklin is seen as the father of the fire department in western culture[citation needed]. In 1736, he established the first fire insurance company named the Union Volunteer Fire Company in Philadelphia. The city of Boston established the very first publicly funded paid fire department in America in 1679.
In the late 19th century, the demand of central command for fire companies took place within cities because the fire companies would fight over fires or not put out a fire because the owners didn’t have fire-fighting insurance. Insured properties had plaques with the insurance company’s names affixed to their exterior called fire marks. This caused areas of a city to be badly damage by fires and caused many deaths. Cities started to form their own fire departments as a civil service to the public, forcing private fire companies to shut down, and merging their fire stations into the city’s fire department.
In 1906, the first modern fire department was organized in Springfield, Massachusetts, after Knox Automobile of Springfield produced the first modern fire engine one year earlier.
