San Rafael Fire Department

San Rafael Fire Department traces its roots to December 5, 1874, when a group of local residents organized the San Rafael Hose, Hook and Ladder Company as an all-volunteer outfit under the motto "We are always ready when you want us!" What began with a hand-pulled hose cart and, later, a horse team named Tom and Jerry grew into a fully professional department, adding its first motorized apparatus in 1913 and steadily modernizing ever since.

Today the department operates from seven neighborhood fire stations, including Stations 52 and 57, which opened in 2019, alongside a new Public Safety Center that came online in 2020. About 90 professional personnel respond to calls across the city, and roughly 70 percent of those calls are medical in nature, reflecting the department's growing emphasis on emergency medical services alongside traditional fire suppression.

Beyond emergency response, San Rafael Fire runs active fire prevention and construction inspection programs, a defensible-space and vegetation-management effort aimed at wildfire risk reduction, and a community paramedicine initiative that connects frequent 911 callers with case management and social-work resources instead of repeat emergency department visits.

San Rafael Fire Department recruits Entry Level Firefighter/Paramedics on a continuous basis and also accepts Lateral Firefighter/Paramedic transfers from other departments. Openings, including administrative and Wildfire Defensible Space Inspector positions, are posted and applied for through the CalOpps job portal.