How Many Vehicles Respond to a One-Alarm Fire?

One-Alarm Fire Defined

• A one-alarm fire is a relatively small fire, one that is contained in a small area, building or piece of land. One-alarm fires can typically be handled by one department or fire station, but it can take multiple firefighting units and several firefighters to put out a one-alarm fire successfully. In some cases, one-alarm fires can progress to multiple alarms, or they may have been misreported as small in the first place, in which case additional units and firefighters are called to the scene. Examples of one-alarm fires are brush fires, those contained in one area of a home or building, a small car fire or those in a small surface on the ground.
  
  

Response

• With most fire departments, a one-alarm fire will call for at least three units to arrive on the scene. The type of unit varies depending upon what is available, but the preferred response from emergency vehicles is two pumper trucks and one additional truck that may be a pumper, a ladder truck or a rescue-response truck. Rescue-response trucks are designed to have paramedics aboard able to treat the victims in addition to fighting the fire. Each truck has its own specific abilities and aids in firefighting, but it is the combination and teamwork of them together that successfully puts the fire out.
  
  

Pumpers

• The pumpers are trucks designed to pump water onto the fire. This truck gets its water from a fire hydrant, and many of them can pump up to 2,000 gallons of water per minute. These trucks come equipped with large hoses made of flame-resistant fabric and pump water directly onto the fire under the direction of the firefighters.
  
  

Ladder Trucks

• Ladder trucks are used to reach high or hard-to-reach areas and are designed with long ladders or aerial platforms. These trucks are also equipped with water hoses and may be used in conjunction with pumpers to fight a fire effectively and quickly. Oftentimes, water will be sprayed by a pumper onto the lower portion of the fire, and the ladder trucks will stay at the top of the fire and work their way down.
  
  

Firefighters

• The number of firefighters called to the scene of a one-alarm fire depends on the department, how many firefighters are available, and how many firefighters are placed on the engine. Most engines have from six to eight firefighters aboard, and they are all ready to respond when their department is called. Depending on the number of units that arrive, there can be as many as 20 firefighters putting out a one-alarm fire. Each of the firefighters is specially trained to fight fires and perform emergency medical response to anyone who may be injured.