FAQ

There are two possible reasons for a fire engine to come with a EMS vehicle to your location. The first is that the EMS vehicle that is normally in your area may already be treating someone else. Therefore to make sure you receive the quickest treatment possible the fire apparatus responds to begin treatment while and EMS vehicle from another area responds. The second reason is that the nature of the emergency warrants some extra people to assist with the treatment of a patient. Normally EMS vehicles have two people assigned every day. If a patient may need multiple treatments at the same time, one person will not be enough to administer all patient care. Therefore some of the personnel from the fire apparatus will join the EMS personnel and treat the patient as appropriate.

We block traffic lanes for the safety of our personnel and our patients. Blocking extra lanes keep our personnel safe when they go back to our apparatus to get more equipment and help protect the victim we are trying to stabilize. Over 25 firefighters are killed or injured each year while working at incidents on streets and highways.

Firefighters are very concerned about running over firehoses because the hose can be damaged and any firefighter at the end of a nozzle will have the water interrupted and possibly cause injuries or death. Any hose that is driven over without protection has to be taken out of service and tested.

Weeds and bushes should be kept three feet from fire hydrants for visibility and accessibility.

The Fire Department does not assist in rescuing animals. Citizens may contact Animal Control. The telephone number is (740)670-7277 .

You will need to get out of the house and then call 9-1-1 for the Fire Department from outside of the house or from a neighbor’s house. The use of a phone could cause the gas to ignite if you called from inside the house.

Firefighters work 24-hour shifts, because unlike police, firefighters cannot go out and perform training, inspections etc. during the nighttime. It would take more firefighters to cover 8 hour shifts. Firefighters at Newark work a 48 hour work week and the 24 hour shift allows this. This type of schedule is the most cost-effective work schedule to provide fire protection and is the most common nationwide.

Because the crews work a 24-hour shift, they must eat their lunch and dinner at the station. At times firefighters all eat the same meal, as a group. The crews pay for their food out of their own pockets. So, after the equipment is checked and the housework completed, one of the fire trucks will then make a quick trip to the grocery store to purchase the food for the shift. All crews remain in service to respond to calls during this time.

Emergency calls represents only about fifteen percent of the work of a typical fire department in Newark. 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 Fire Department responds. Nearly eighty percent of the Fire Department’s emergency responses are, in fact, calls for medical aid, including illness/accidents at home and work, and injuries resulting from vehicle crashes. Other calls for emergency response involve hazardous materials releases, technical rescues, response to fire alarms and other calls for public assistance. Firefighters also spend much of their time maintaining equipment, doing routine public safety pre-planning for businesses and rental housing, training for all types of emergency responses and filling out the reports and paperwork associated with these activities.

When it is safe to do so, you should pull over to the right and stop until all emergency vehicles have safely passed. If you cannot safely maneuver to the right, simply stop and stay stopped so the vehicles can go around you safely.

Most modern smoke detectors will chirp to alert you the batteries are low, you should replace the batteries and test your smoke detector. Smoke detectors can be purchased at any hardware or large commercial department store.

We recommend you change the batteries in your smoke detectors every 6 months, an easy way to remember is to change batteries when you reset your clock for daylight savings time.

Newark Fire Department is not equipped to fill fire extinguishers. However, you can find local fire extinguisher businesses in the yellow pages to refill them.

No, city ordinance prohibits outside burning leaves within the city limits.

Please see the document located here for detailed information about cooking fires.