What other responsibilities do firefighters have other than fighting fires?
Firefighting actually represents a relatively small portion of the work of a typical fire department in today’s world. The number of residential and commercial fires has steadily decreased over the years due to a variety of factors including improvements in construction, a greater public awareness of the risk factors leading to fires and a significant reduction in smoking nationwide.

Fires, however, are only some of the emergencies to which the Del Mar Fire Department responds. Seventy percent of the Fire Department’s emergency responses are, in fact, calls for medical aid, including illness/accidents at home and work, injuries resulting from vehicle accidents and other medical trauma in Del Mar. Other calls for emergency response involve hazardous materials releases, response to fire alarms and other calls for public assistance.

Firefighters also spend quite a bit of time maintaining equipment, doing routine public safety inspections for businesses, training for all types of emergency responses and filling out the reports and paperwork associated with these activities.

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1. What other responsibilities do firefighters have other than fighting fires?
2. Why does the Fire Department bring the fire engine just for a simple inspection?
3. Why did you chop that big hole in my roof? The fire was in the kitchen, not the attic!
4. Why does the fire engine respond when a request is made for an ambulance for a person with a medical condition?
5. When would be a good time to come to the fire station so my children can see the fire engines?
6. Are smoke detectors needed in my new home?
7. How often do I need to change the battery in my smoke detector?
8. I want to re-roof my house. Is shake shingle roofing allowed?
9. Does Del Mar require fire sprinklers in homes?
10. If there is a fire at my house, how many fire engines are going to arrive?