Scanning Louisville area fire services.
The Louisville area has always been divided into two sections, one being Jefferson county and the other was the city of Louisville.Each had it's own police, fire and EMS services and radio systems.In 2003 the citizens of Louisville and Jefferson county voted to merge the city and county governments to form one Louisville metro government.
Today the Louisville area is still seperated into two areas.The former city of Louisville is called the URBAN SERVICE DISTRICT and the unincorporated area around the old city limits formerly known as Jefferson county is the SUBURBAN SERVICE DISTRICT.
Scanning fire services in the suburban area is a little different from monitoring the fire department in the urban district.The primary diffirence being that the urban service district has only ONE fire department, Louisville Fire & Rescue.The suburban area has 19 fire departments that use both career and volunteer firefighters.
Louisville Fire & Rescue has 18 engine companies and ten truck companies, three of which are quints and one is a quad. In addition there are numerous auxiliary, command, service and specialty unit vehicles are included in the LFD's fleet.
The four district chiefs respond to incidents with their adjuncts in Ford Expeditions.The Assistant Chiefs of Operations, the bureau heads and the Chief of the Division also have department vehicles, (usually these are cars, not Expeditions). Of these, only the Chief of the Division has an aide assigned to him. The chief's aid is also the Public Information Officer, (PIO), and he uses a division car of his own when responding to incidents without the Chief. Chief's aids use the same car number as the officer they are assigned to but with a "W" after, example Car 1W ( Dep't chief's aid)
In addition to Engine 1's pumper, a Haz-Mat van (HM-1) is also manned 24 / 7 as part of the company. It contains an assortment of mitigation and isolation equipment, as well as computer and research materials, and it rolls with the pumper on every run. Also at Engine 1 is the CO2 Truck (Car 37). The CO2 Truck is basically a converted, flatbed Chevy Pickup carrying 2 rows of cascade style CO2 tanks connected through a series of valves and equipped with two nozzles on long hose reels. This rarely used piece of equipment makes it possible to extinguish fires in underground electrical vaults by flooding them with carbon dioxide.
Engine 5 is also assigned a Haz-Mat van (HM-5) similar to Engine 1's. Since Engine 5 is a secondary Haz-Mat company, HM-5 is only manned upon being dispatched to a hazardous materials incident. Most runs necessitate the engine only.
Similarly, Rescue 11, Engine 11's trench / structural collapse rescue unit, only leaves quarters on rescue incidents or during training. Engine 11 is usually a one-piece company. In recent months, Engine 11 and Truck 7's apparatus, rescue equipment and personnel have been greatly utilized in training Metro Louisville's new LMUSARS Team, (Louisville Metro Urban Search And Rescue).
Engine 12 is the city's newest Haz-Mat pumper. All of it's equipment is carried on the engine, so it is not assigned a Haz-Mat van. At Engine 12's quarters are kept two other special pieces of equipment, however. The Brush Truck (Car 540) is an old, army-style, off-road jeep. The Brush Truck is used for fires in undeveloped areas, (such as parts of
The Divers and Water Rescue/Recovery Team of Engine 2 are responsible for the operation of
The Louisville Metro Arson Unit is composed of deputized officers who have graduated from both the police academy and the Louisville Fire Department drill school. Their job is to investigate all suspicious fires and apprehend the perpetrators responsible for arsons.
You will hear the units dispatched over the radio as:
Engine (carries mainly water, hoses and other equipment for extenguishing fires)
Truck (Carries ladders, axes, rescue tools and other equipment for making entry to buildings, doing search & rescue operations and structure overhaul after the the fire is out.)
Squirt (Similar to an engine but has a 50-75 foot articulated arm with a nozzle on the end mounted where an aerial would be on a truck.)
Telesquirt (a cross between a squirt an engine and a truck, equiped with a 50-75 foot aerial ladder on top with a telescoping "Ladderpipe" hose and nozzle underneath)
Quint (Type of firefighting apparatus with five defining attributes. The Quint Truck is both a Pumper and a Ladder Truck. A Quint" has: 1. a pump, 2. hose, 3. a water tank, 4. ground ladders, and 5. an aerial ladder.)
Quad (Combination of an engine, truck, rescue and a telesquirt)
Rescue (Specially equiped for search and rescue operations in dangerous situations such as structure fires, building collapses, water rescues and high angle rescues.)
Hazmat (A unit specially equiped to respond to and mitigate hazardous materials situations which can be anything from a small gasoline spill to a major chemical leak.)
Car (Command unit such as Department chief, assistant chief or district chief or a service unit like an air bottle truck, mobile command post, rehab bus or arson unit.)
When dispatching a call LFD will designate it as a Silent Alarm, Still Alarm, Box Alarm or a Special Alarm.
A "box alarm" is a structure fire or large scale haz-mat. It consists of 5 companies, which could be a mix of engines, a Squrt, a Telesqurt, a quad, Telesqurts, quints, and trucks. But, generally, the alarm requires at least two to act as truck companies, obviously, a quad, quints, or trucks.
A "silent alarm" is anything that a single company should be able to handle - medical call, car fire, trash fire, wash-off, ect. It will generally be an engine, quint, quad, Squrt, or Telesqurt company. However, a truck company can respond on medical calls if needed. Sometimes, if the response is on a freeway, two companies will be dispatched on a "silent alarm" in different directions. Whichever company winds up with the best access will cancel the second.
A "still alarm" is a two company dispatch - an engine, Squrt, or Telesqurt along with a quint, quad, or truck. These include fire alarms, gas leaks, extrications, and other rescues. Two companies should generally be able to handle these situations. On rescues, another company could be requested, which could be dispatched as a "silent alarm" or "special alarm." Or, if a fire alarm turns out to be structure fire, then the "box will be filled out."
District Chiefs are generally only dispatched on box alarms, but can add themselves to any call or be requested by a company on any scene.
Louisville Fire & Rescue frequencies
Frequency CH Description
- 460.5500 F-1 LF&R Operations (Primary)
- 460.5750 F-2 LF&R Operations (Secondary)
- 460.6000 F-3 LF&R Operations (Investigaters)
- 460.6250 F-4 LF&R Dispatch
The Jefferson County Fire Service uses a four digit number system for the units in it's 18 departments. Each suburban department is assigned a two digit radio ID number which is used to identify all their units.The third digit in the unit number indicates the type of unit and the fourth digit indicates the unit's individual number.
Here's an example,The Okolona fire district's radio ID number is 80 so all of their unit numbers will start with 80.As I said earlier the third digit is the unit type so a unit with 3 as the third number would be an engine because 3 series units are engines and if the last number was 1 then taht would tell you that this unit is the first of it's series in that department so then put all the numbers together and you get 8031 or in other words Okolona engine 1.
Here are the department radio ID numbers.
- Anchorage Fire & EMS 20
- Buechel Fire Department 37
- Camp Taylor Fire Department 50
- Dixie Suburban Fire Department 30
- Eastwood Fire Department 77
- Fairdale Fire Department 90
- Fern Creek Fire Department 71
- Harrods Creek Fire Department 12
- Highview Fire Department 11
- Jeffersontown Fire Department 33
- Lake Dreamland Fire Department 40
- Lyndon Fire Department 16
- McMahan Fire Deartment 55
- Middletown Fire Department 99
- Okolona Fire Department 80
- Pleasure Ridge Park Fire Department 22
- St. Matthews Fire Department 26
- Worthington Fire Department 18
Here are the unit type numbers
- 0 - Chief Officer 01 - Always Fire Chief of the District
- 1 - Misc. Personnel/Officers
- 2 - Engine Company
- 3 - Engine Company
- 4 - Quad Combinations
- 5 - Truck Company: Aerial, Snorkel, Elevating Platform
Ladder Tower, Tele-Squrt, ETC. - 6 - Water Tanker
- 7 - Brush Fire Unit
- 8 - Heavy or Light Squad, Ambulance
- 9 - Service, Utility or Special Purpose Vehicle
Recently some suburban departments have been dispatched by individual unit numbers rather then paging the whole department as it was done in the past.
The Jefferson County Fire Service also has special response teams for different situations that standard response units are not equiped to handle.These teams are : Trench / Structural Collapse Team, Water Rescue Team, Hazardous Materials Response Team and the Louisville Metro Urban Search And Rescue Team (LMUSAR).
LMUSAR is a multi-agency technical rescue team, primarily tasked with USAR (urban search & rescue) response. LMUSAR is capable of:
- Confined Space Rescue
- High / Low Angle Rope Rescue
- Structural Collapse Rescue
- Trench Rescue
LMUSAR is made up of Emergency Responders from Louisville Metro/Jefferson County LMUSAR is currently a local and regional response asset with the primary area of response being Louisville Metro and the surrounding Counties. The Jefferson County Water Rescue Team is comprised of firefighters from several Suburban Fire Districts. Their mission is to provide for the rescue of victims who are unable of self rescue from water emergencies involving moving water, wide spread flooding, or searches in streams along rivers or even man made retention/detention basins. Surface ice rescues are another occasional hazard that the team is capable of responding to.The Water Rescue Team is dispatched over the suburban fire radio. The Metro Louisville Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) Team, like the LMUSAR and Water Rescue Team is made up of members of Louisville Fire & Rescue, the suburban fire districts as well as Louisville Metro EMS and the Louisville Metro Health Department. Metro HAZMAT is organized into three teams and is dispatched over both the suburban fire radio as well as urban fire. The Jefferson County Trench Rescue Team was started in the mid 1990's and is the oldest special response team in Jefferson County. It is comprised of members of every Suburban fire district, Louisville Fire & Rescue and Louisville Metro EMS. Like the other teams the Trench Rescue Team is dispatched over the suburban fire radio. These teams may operate on other frequencies if they are responding outside of the Metro Louisville area. Suburban Fire Frequencies. Frequency CH Description In addition to LF&R and the suburban departments there is also the city of Shively fire department. Shively is a small independent city inside Jefferson county but not part of metro Louisville.They operate their own police and fire services. Shively Fire Frequencies Frequency CH Description and the surrounding counties. This includes personnel from Fire, EMS, and Emergency Management agencies. Participating agencies include:
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