Michele Anderson, Public Safety Communications Manager
Wednesday, June 13, 2018 at 1:04 p.m.
The Spokane Fire Department (SFD) proudly announces full-time paramedic staffing at all of its fire stations. The announcement comes after the launch of paramedics being staffed at Spokane Fire Station #8 (1608 N. Rebecca St.) during all shifts.
“The overwhelming majority of emergencies that we respond to involve a medical nature and the complexity of those incidents are ever-increasing,” said Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer. “Currently our life-threatening incidents year-to-date are 12% last years, and the data indicates that the trend is showing no sign of decreasing. It’s paramount for our department to have the most prepared and resilient system possible to meet the needs of our community.”
In 2017, out of the 40,304 calls for service within city limits for the department 32,047 of the calls were medically-related. The SFD Annual Report contains more data and can be found at: https://goo.gl/GsSMVT.
SFD has 16 stations staffed 24-hours a day, seven days a week. All 365 SFD firefighters are at least Emergency Medical Technician certified if they are assigned to the Field Operations Division and 98 are Paramedics—including Fire Chief Schaeffer. Firefighters that are chosen to for paramedic training receive approximately 1,300 hours of education and training including: 672 hours of didactic and lab training, 260 hours of supervised hospital clinical time and a minimum of 360 hours of supervised paramedic field internship. SFD Paramedics attend clinical rotations and field internships throughout several hospitals and EMS agencies in Spokane and Northern Idaho. In addition to the Paramedic Training, they also receive certifications in Advanced Cardiac Life Support, Pediatric Advanced Life Support, and Prehospital Trauma Life Support. The SFD Paramedics are among the best in the country, and can now be found in every neighborhood protecting our citizens and visitors throughout the City of Spokane.
