Broward County Fl - new Haz Mat rig

Capttomo

Capttomo

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Sep 7, 2020
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Broward County Fire Rescue was created in 1981 to consolidate over a dozen volunteer departments throughout the county and begin staffing engines with full time firefighters. The county was experiencing phenomenal growth back then. The BCFD was an agency of the county government as was a separate Broward County EMS In 1993, Broward County Fire and Broward County EMS merged into Broward County Fire Rescue. By the late 1990’s the City municipal fire departments were annexing unincorporated areas into the cities and dropping Broward EMS for their own Fire rescue based EMS systems. Broward County Fire Rescue was poised to shrink rapidly into a very small agency. The county also ran a separate ARFF fire department at Fort Lauderdale airport and a separate Industrial firefighting fire department at Port Everglades. Broward County Commission no longer wanted to be in the fire and EMS business and was all too happy to let cities take over as much as they wanted. The sheriff at that time , Ken Jenne, saw a tremendous political opportunity and pitched a plan to take over what was left of Broward County Fire Rescue. Thus in the late 1990’s Broward Fire Rescue was absorbed into the Broward County Sheriffs Office. The department once again grew this time by leaps and bounds. It absorbed the county fire departments at the airport and Port Everglades. It began contracting with Cities and absorbing their fire departments. It also provided regional special operation services. Today, the Broward County Sheriff Fire Rescue has 24 stations, 875 personnel, provides service to 9 cities, the airport, the seaport, regional full time haz mat. Regional full time TRT, and a 24/7 dedicated medical rescue helicopter. The department is staffed by state certified firefighters and paramedics and is run like any other county fire department except that they are budgeted from the Sheriff’s budget, and the Fire Chief reports to the Sheriff instead of a county manager.
 
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