Emergency Operations

The Operations Division includes Fire Suppression, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and Aircraft Rescue Firefighting (ARFF). Eight fire stations house the personnel and equipment responsible for emergency response in a 64-square-mile area with a population of 133,000.  All firefighters are hired as career employees.  GFR operates under an automatic aid agreement with Alachua County to provide quickest unit responses in the urban area using a computer-aided dispatch system (CAD) and automatic vehicle location (AVL). TERRITORY MAP(PDF, 1000KB)

Each emergency unit has at least one paramedic on board operating under the authority of the Department's contracted Medical Director.  All personnel are either Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) or Paramedics. Approximately 75% to 80% of GFR's calls for service are emergency medical calls.

Gainesville Fire Rescue is responsible for one of the busiest airports in North Central Florida, the Gainesville-Alachua County Regional Airport.  Fire Station 6 serves the Airport property and has personnel on-duty 24-hours a day. 

GFR Units are dispatched through the Alachua County Combined Communications Center operated by the Alachua County Sheriff's Department.

In 2019, GFR responded to 14,751 EMS Calls - 1,441 Alarms - 3,036 Fire Calls - 321 Hazardous Materials Incidents and  318 Other Types of Calls, including Service Calls, for a total of  19,867 incidents. These incidents represent a unit response total for all types of GFR units of 25,114 responses.

The City of Gainesville has an Automatic Aid Agreement with Alachua County for Fire and EMS Services(PDF, 12MB). 

The City of Gainesville also has a Comprehensive Emergency Operations Plan(PDF, 3MB).