Organized in 1954, the York County Department of Fire and Life Safety, a suburban county fire and rescue department located in America’s Historic Triangle (Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown) on the Virginia Peninsula, provides fire, rescue and emergency medical services to approximately 69,000 citizens and over 23,000 households in addition to daily workers, visitors, tourists, commuters and travelers. The department is comprised of career and volunteer members that operate out of a centrally located administration building, six strategically distributed fire stations, and a training facility located at the Dominion Virginia Power Yorktown Power Station. The department is made up of the Office of Emergency Management, Administrative and Support Services Office, and two divisions—the Fire and Rescue Operations Division and the Prevention and Community Safety Division. The Department of Fire and Life Safety is responsible for the management, direction and delivery of all non-emergency and emergency services for York County with the exception of law enforcement. The department provides a broad range of services including fire protection, plans review, code enforcement, fire inspections, fire investigations and public fire and life safety education. The department coordinates the County’s emergency management activities, provides fire suppression, emergency medical services, rescue services and hazardous materials responses. The department also provides: professional fire and life safety training and training program management; command and control of major emergencies; information management services; grant administration services; victim and occupant/owner assistance services; special events coordination; water and dive rescue; technical rescue; mass casualty incident management; medical response to weapons of mass destruction and mass patient care; and enforcement of the state laws and local ordinances and regulations of the County of York pertaining to animal control and protection. The department is unique within the County government, in that all of its functions operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
