Philadelphia Fire Department
The Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD) provides firefighting and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
One of the oldest fire departments in the United States, the Philadelphia Fire Department began as the volunteer Union Fire Company, established on December 7, 1736. After 134 years, the City Council decided the growing city needed a professional fire department, and passed a December 1870 ordinance to create one.
The PFD, like many large city fire departments throughout the county, provides EMS to the city. It currently has one of the busiest EMS Divisions within a fire department in the United States, handling 229,709 emergency medical responses in 2011. Historically, PFD has been home to the busiest medic units in the country. One PFD Advanced Life Support (ALS) Unit, Medic 22, responded to 9,540 calls 2005.
Read more about Philadelphia Fire Department: Organization, Call Statistics, Rank Insignias, Memorial, See Also, External Links
Famous quotes containing the words philadelphia, fire and/or department:
“It used to be said that, socially speaking, Philadelphia asked who a person is, New York how much is he worth, and Boston what does he know. Nationally it has now become generally recognized that Boston Society has long cared even more than Philadelphia about the first point and has refined the asking of who a person is to the point of demanding to know who he was. Philadelphia asks about a man’s parents; Boston wants to know about his grandparents.”
—Cleveland Amory (b. 1917)
“The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““Which is more important to you, your field or your children?” the department head asked. She replied, “That’s like asking me if I could walk better if you amputated my right leg or my left leg.””
—Anonymous Parent. As quoted in Women and the Work Family Dilemma, by Deborah J. Swiss and Judith P. Walker, ch. 2 (1993)