The men and women of the Sierra Madre Volunteer Fire Department are the first line of defense between the city's 11,000-plus residents and the wide variety of threats that come with living in a wild land/urban interface area.
In addition to providing emergency fire control and medical response services, the department also provides fire prevention and public education services to the community.
The department is the only all-volunteer fire department in Los Angeles County and has three Battalion Chiefs, one Fire Marshall, one Captain Paramedic Coordinator, six Captains, six Engineers and 30 firefighters, in rotating platoons of five members each.
Stephen Heydorff is the Department Chief, with Michael Bamberger, Robert Burnett and Roger Lowe serving as Battalion Chiefs. Richard Snyder is the Fire Marshall and Greg Christmas is the department's Paramedic Coordinator.
With the use of the Verdugo Fire Communications Center in Glendale, California, the Sierra Madre Fire Department is dispatched to all fire incidences in the San Gabriel Mountains, above the City of Sierra Madre and in mutual aid with the Arcadia, Monrovia and Pasadena Fire Departments, as well as with the L.A. County Department and U.S. Forest Service.
Sierra Madre has had its own fire department ever since 1921, when a major fire forced the community to recognize the need for better on-call fire protection for the city.