Combination Department

A combination fire department is a mix of full-time career firefighters /emergency medical technicians (emts) and on-call paid firefighters/emts.  The fire station is staffed 7 days a week from 6 am to 6 pm with career firefighters/emts.  They are full time employees of the Town.

In the evening hours, the on-call department goes into action. On –call members live here in the community and have a department issued pager that alerts them to a call and are paid an hourly wage when they respond to emergencies. They are considered part-time Town employees.

 Every night, 2 to 3 on-call emts can sign up to staff the ambulance. They are paid a stipend to be available in town should a medical emergency occur. They respond from their homes to the station and bring the ambulance to the scene. Additionally, an on-call officer is also on call for the 12 hours each night.

Occasionally, the ambulance may not be fully staffed for part or all of the 12 hours. In this instance, the on-call officer responds along with a call out to any available emts from the department. This scenario also happens when another medical emergency occurs while the first ambulance is at another call requiring our second ambulance to be placed into service. 

On-call firefighters are not paid a stipend to be on call. They respond from their homes when a fire type emergency occurs and their pagers are activated. They travel to the station and respond with the appropriate apparatus depending upon the emergency.

The response ratio for the Town of Littleton is approximately 70% medical emergency calls and 30% fire type incidents.