The Dillingham Volunteer Fire Department & Rescue Squad is made up of a group of dedicated volunteers. The Department has a total of 35 members both permanent and probationary. We have three categories of members, 23 are both fire and rescue, 6 are fire fighters and 6 are rescue.

The Department maintains three ambulances, four pumpers, two tank trucks, and a utility truck .

On the Rescue Squad members are trained as Ambulance Drivers, Emergency Trauma Technicians (ETTs), or Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) - I, II and III. For fire calls all available personnel respond. For rescue calls we have on-call teams. Volunteers commit to being on call from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for a week at a time. It has become increasingly difficult to find EMTs willing to make the commitment to be on an on-call team because of both work and family commitments. Because of this we are looking for additional volunteers willing to make the time commitment to become either ETTs or EMTs. An ETT class requires between forty and sixty hours of training. EMT certification takes from one hundred thirty to one hundred sixty hours. One of our ongoing goals is to increase the number of rescue volunteers who are willing to commit to both the training and the on-call teams.

We have been working on improving our ability to bill for ambulance calls. Although we are a volunteer Department we must bill for ambulance calls in order to defray part of the cost of training, and maintaining and replacing ambulances and other equipment. It is imperative that we replace Ambulances on a 5 year cycle. This will make our oldest 3rd line ambulance 15 years old before being replaced.

We are working on a five (5) year protection plan for the Department. Just some of the things included in this five year plan are an equipment and vehicle replacement plan. Equipment includes but is not limited to radios, pagers, tools, fire hoses, nozzles, fittings, fire turnout gear & EMS equipment. Both of our fire trucks housed in the downtown station need to be replaced. One is 29 years old and the other is 25 years old. They no longer meet the needs of the community. Today's pumping capacity and technology totally surpasses that of 25 years ago. Unfortunately we will not be able to replace these trucks until we are able to obtain a new downtown fire hall. At this time we are looking for funds to build a new station that is big enough to house new larger fire trucks. The new fire hall is tied with one other project as number 6 on the on the City's Capital Improvements list. The other project ranking 6th on the list is the Windmill Hill fire protection water supply.

Aside from working to increase the number of dedicated volunteers we are continuously working to improve the quality and amount of training available to our members. We would like to be able to bring experts in the field although because of costs this is not always possible. Most of our training is currently done by our more experienced fire personnel.