DDC Chairperson

We protect a county with a population of over 2 million residents. We respond to a 19,200 square mile region through a combination of 81 different facilities with nearly 1,100 employees. Our goal is to serve our communities with the best in fire protection and offer a professional and dedicated response when citizens of San Bernardino County call for help. And in the course of a year, we respond to tens of thousands of those calls. County Fire protects more than 60 communities, including the Cities of Needles, Fontana, Upland, Grand Terrace, Hesperia, Yucca Valley, and Adelanto. We also host the California Urban Search and Rescue Team (CA-RTF-6) staffed by 60 highly trained rescue professionals.

We offer services beyond fire suppression and protection. The Office of Emergency Services provides disaster assistance to all 24 cities and towns in our county as well as support to the county. Our OES staff has ensured the County is officially “StormReady” as well as organizing the County’s participation in the multi-agency disaster response exercise Golden Guardian. OES also lead the County’s participation in the Great California Shake Out, the largest earthquake preparedness exercise in US history, since its kickoff in 2008. Exercises like these are designed to better prepare the department, the County and the citizens for a major disaster.

County Fire is especially proud of its volunteers in the Emergency Communication Service (amateur or ham radio) and Community Emergency Response Teams. These volunteers give of their time to help protect their communities and improve disaster preparedness, response and communications.

The Office of the Fire Marshal also boasts a well organized and well trained division, which includes not only the fire marshal, but also fire prevention, fire investigations, public education, planning & engineering, hazardous materials emergency response, household hazardous waste and records retention. Another County Fire department is the Support Services Division which includes vehicle maintenance, warehouse services, and facility maintenance. Our Training Division provides a variety of training courses and includes an EMS section which is staffed with two registered nurses and a paramedic as certified trainers. The Training Division is also responsible for the department safety programs. Located a mile to the west is our Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting (ARFF) training center which is where firefighters are trained in all aspects of FAA-approved aircraft firefighting.

County Fire’s Public Relations Office disperses critical information to residents as well as coordinating with the area’s extensive media market before, during, and after disasters. County Fire is a member of the CONFIRE JPA for dispatching and mapping services. Our annual call volume is nearly 150,000 calls for service and is dispatched out of our dispatch center in Rialto.

Please tour our website which is undergoing changes to make it as interactive as possible while providing the most useful and up-to-date information.

As Fire Chief of County Fire, I strive to fully embody the three tenets of our standard of commitment: Courage, Integrity and Service. Please call us at 909.387.5974 with any questions or concerns and thank you for allowing us to serve you with a department that is committed to providing “Premier Fire Services in Southern California.”