Santa Clara County Fire Department

The Los Altos County Fire District maintains a contract with the Santa Clara County Fire Department. This gives the District access to a well equipped and capable team of professionals. More information can also be found on the SCCFD Customer Service Overview and Annual Report. (PDF 4.8 MB)

While we associate the major function of the Fire Department as dealing with fire emergencies, by far the majority of incidents responded to do not involve fire.

The following table gives some idea of the proportions involved among different types of incident. These figures show the number of incidents responded to by the whole of the Santa Clara County Fire Department (including LAHCFD) in 2006. The overall proportions of the various types of incidents are reflective of those within our own district.

As can be seen from this table, by far the most prominent type of incident involves medical emergencies rather than fire-related calls.

Incident Type	Quantity	Percent
Emergency Medical (illness, injuries, accidents)	10,733	69%
Fire (structure, vegetation, smoke, gas leak, alarms)	3,559	23%
Service Calls (flooding, citizen assists, lock-outs.)	1,156	7%
Hazardous Materials (chemical releases, illegal disposal, suspicious powders etc.)	158	1%

Accreditation

In 2005, the Santa Clara County Fire Department was awarded “Accredited Agency” status by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). In August 2010, the Santa Clara County Fire Department successfully completed the reaccreditation process and was awarded a second five-year term as an "Accredited Agency." Just over 130 fire departments around the world have successfully completed the rigorous process of evaluating every facet of their operations to ensure continuous quality improvement and enhancement of service delivery to their communities. County Fire is proud to be one of only nine California fire departments to display this level of commitment to validating quality service.