Fire

New Fire Station in 2002

My name is Bruce Weimer and as fire chief of the City of La Grande Fire Department, I’d like to welcome you to the fire department’s web page. The La Grande Fire Department provides traditional fire suppression, rescue response and fire prevention/fire code enforcement services for the residents of the City but like many modern fire departments, we also provide fire service based emergency medical response and ambulance transport services.


The Fire Department operates out of central fire station located at 1806 Cove Avenue in La Grande and is staffed by 15 full-time career firefighters, 20 part-time firefighters, a fire department secretary and the fire chief. The full-time firefighters work a 24 hour schedule and are evenly divided between 3 shifts. Because we provide advanced life support (ALS) emergency medical response and ambulance transport services for the City (6 square miles) and all of Union County (2038 square miles), our personnel are emergency medical technicians (EMTs) certified at the paramedic, intermediate and basic EMT certification levels.    

  
Annually we respond to approximately 2,500 calls for service, 77% of these call are for emergency medical services. Since acquiring the ambulance service from Grande Ronde Hospital in 2002 our call volume has increased at about 2.5% per year and we anticipate it will continue to do so at a steady rate as our population ages.


I am extremely proud of our personnel and the level of service they provide on a daily basis. It would be my wish that no one would ever need to call 911 to request emergency assistance from the City of La Grande Fire Department, but should that need arise, you can be assured we will respond quickly with well trained and caring firefighters to tend to your emergency. We are committed to protecting the lives and property of those we serve.