SPECIALTIES
Learn about our specialty units
Paramedicine
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) starts at the top in the FCFRD. Fire Chief Butler is a 20+ year paramedic and views EMS as an integral part of the FCFRD. The FCFRD has two active medical directors on staff who also respond to incidents and engage in mentorship, training, and our 6 month immersive FTEP model internship. EMS continuing education credits are earned while on duty, using modern training equipment such as immersive classrooms, life-like manikins, and anatomy lab access.
Paramedic providers may ride a variety of apparatus and are assigned to may roles, such as: driver, firefighter, lead, or officer. The FCFRD compensates the assigned paramedic with riding pay: $3/hour while on a transport unit, and $2/hour while on a suppression unit. In addition, paramedics receive an annual ALS stipend, which is 10% of the Firefighter/EMT starting salary ($6,740). Paramedics applying now are eligible to receive a $10,000 signing bonus.
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
HazMat responds to flammable liquid spills, natural gas leaks, releases of chemicals, fuels, biological agents, radiological materials, explosives, and other hazardous materials related to environmental crime and terrorism.
The team is specially trained and equipped to identify unknown chemicals and contain the release of hazardous materials. The team provides environmental protection and decontamination of persons or properties, and performs foam operations for tank farm, pipeline, and transportation incidents involving flammable liquids.
Hazardous materials response resources are assigned to the McLean, Penn Daw, Lorton, Edsall Road, and Fairfax Center fire stations.
TECHNICAL RESCUE OPERATIONS TEAM (TROT)
TROT personnel respond to complex and challenging rescue incidents including: high-angle incidents occurring on cranes, cliffs or high-rise buildings; confined space incidents occurring in tunnels, tanks or sewers; building collapses; trench collapse events related to excavations or construction site accidents; industrial or transportation accidents; and swift water incidents occurring on flooded streams, roadways, and within Great Falls Park.
Technical rescue resources are assigned to the Great Falls, Burke, Jefferson, Fair Oaks, and North Point fire stations.
MARINE OPERATIONS
Marine operations personnel respond to various types of emergencies occurring on Gunston Cove, Occoquan Bay, and waters of the Potomac and Occoquan rivers that fall within Virginia.
Through cooperative agreements, personnel also respond to incidents occurring in the waters of Maryland and the District of Columbia, when requested.
The fire boat is staffed by trained personnel at Fire Station 20, Gunston.
URBAN SEARCH AND RESCUE
The Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team, known when deployed domestically as Virginia Task Force 1 (VA-TF1) and internationally as United States 1 (USA-01), was established in 1986 as a disaster response resource. Sponsored by the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, the team is one of 28 in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) system and one of two, partnering with the federal government, to respond internationally with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The team has over 200 specially trained firefighter and civilian personnel including command and general staff, structural engineers, physicians, paramedics, and specialists in heavy rigging, collapse rescue, logistics, hazardous materials, communications, canine search, technical search, and information management. These personnel have extensive expertise in the search and rescue of victims from collapsed structures following a natural or man-made catastrophic event.
The team is fully prepared, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to deploy worldwide within six hours, for up to 21 days. The team deploys in multiple configurations based on disaster type with up to 65,000 pounds of equipment, tools, and supplies. The team can be completely self-sufficient for several days after which only minimal resupply is needed.
The team is recognized worldwide as a leader in Urban Search and Rescue and routinely participates in training and evaluation of other teams as well as international capacity building.
Fire Investigator
