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FAQ
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How do I obtain permission to burn Brush or Leaves?
According to State of
Arkansas Pollution Control regulations, open burning can only consist of natural waste products such as brush, leaves, or garden/lawn waste. No burning of garbage/trash, lumber, rubber, shingles, plastics or petrolium products are allowed. The use of gasoline is not permitted to start an open fire. All open fires in the Springdale City Limits must be attended the whole time they are burning. All open fires must be completely extinguished before dark. A water hose, or heavy equipment must be available to control the fire at all times. The fire must be located at least 50 feet from any structure. Controlled burning is allowed in the Springdale City Limits under the stipulation that no one complains about the smoke. If a citizen complains about smoke produced by a controlled burn, Springdale Fire Department personnel will respond to the scene to investigate, and possibly order you to extinguish the fire. In order to burn, you must obtain a burning permit. You must do this by calling Station 1 by phone at 750-8191. Fire Department personnel will record your address and advise you of the rules of burning. Burn Bans are occasionally issued by the County Judges of either Benton or Washington Counties. No burning is allowed while under a Burn Ban. In fact, citizens who burn under a burn ban may be cited to court for the infraction. Usually after a rain, it may be one or two days before a Burn Ban is lifted. Only the County Judge can lift the ban, therefore the Springdale Fire Department will continue to enforce the ban. Occasionally, weather conditions, such as heavy winds make burning too dangerous. Therefore, on those days Springdale Fire Department personnel will not issue burning permits at the descretion of the Shift Commander on duty or the Fire Chief. Citizens requesting to burn must wait until weather conditions improve.
How do I arrange a tour of a fire station?
All Springdale Fire Department stations are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If your group or organization would like to tour our facilities, please contact a Shift Commander, or Station Captain to make arrangements by calling 750-8191. Usually, tours are conducted at Station 1 because there is a greater variety of apparatus to see. If your organization wishes to tour a station that is closer to your area, the Shift Commander can arrange the tour. Tours can be conducted any time between 8:00am and 10:00pm on any day. Springdale Fire Department personnel welcome visitors at any time during those hours if parents wish to bring their children to see the fire trucks. If you call to arrange a tour, please consider the fact that if we must respond to an emergency call, we may not be in the station at the arranged time.
What is your Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating?
As of February 2008, the City of Springdale enjoys a Class 2 rating. The rating falls on a scale of 1-10 with Class 1 being the best possible rating and a Class 10 indicating no fire protection. There are no Class 1 departments in Arkansas.
Why do fire engines respond with ambulances?
Our engine/truck/rescue companies respond with 2 or 3 personnel and are sometimes stationed closer to your address than the closest ambulance. All of our engines have EMT's or Paramedics who can arrive before an ambulance to begin patient care. Our engines are equipped with basic medical gear and an automatic external defibrillator (AED), which may assist in certain types of cardiac arrest. Each of our Paramedic Ambulances (Squads) have 1 Paramedic and 1 EMT on board. By adding additional personnel on the scene, we can do a more efficient, safer job of caring for our patients.
How can I become a Springdale Firefighter?
Springdale Fire Department is a Civil Service department. This means that we follow the process outlined in the Arkansas Civil Service Law. The complete, step by step process is outlined in our section titled "Recruiting and Hiring Process".
What happens when someone calls 911?
All 911 calls within Springdale Fire Department's response area are answered at our dispatch center, located at the Springdale Police Department. When you call 911, you will be asked "What is your emergency?", this will help them determine whether you need Fire, EMS, or Police assistance. The dispatcher will ask you where you are calling from and a phone number they may call back at if the connection is lost. You will also be asked if you are calling from a safe place. If you are in an unsafe location, you may be asked to hang up and call back from a safe place, but emergency units will be on the way. Depending on the emergency, you may be asked a series of questions that will give us very important information. Based on your answers to the questions, you may be given instructions on what to do for a sick or injured patient prior to our arrival. It is important for you to be as calm and collected as possible so we can communicate effectively with you. The 911 telephone system provides our dispatchers with the name, address and telephone number of the location you are calling from. The dispatcher will ask you this information anyway to verify that the information is correct. If you call 911 from a cellular telephone, the dispatcher will know the name and telephone number of the caller, however our current technology will not tell us your location. Therefore, it is important for you to know exactly where you are. It is best to give us a street address or an intersection. If you must give us directions to your location, please give detailed directions from the closest main road or highway.
How many smoke detectors do I need in my home?
You should have at least one smoke detector in each bedroom, the hallway and at the top of all stairways. Smoke rises, so the best place to install a detector is on the ceiling or high on an inside wall approximately 6-8 inches below the ceiling. We recommend that you buy a battery-operated smoke detector that carries the Underwriter's Laboratories (UL) logo. Newly constructed occupancies are required to have wired smoke detectors with battery backup that are all connected to sound simultaneously if one detector is activated. We recommend that you test your smoke detectors by pressing the test button monthly. If the detector fails to sound, replace the battery. Otherwise, we recommend that you replace all of your smoke detector batteries twice a year. The best time to change your batteries is at the same time you set your clocks back and forth between Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time.
Why are Springdale's fire trucks yellow?
During community service events, and at almost every fire prevention program we attend, the most asked question of all is "Why are Springdale's fire trucks yellow?" Today, if you ask most anyone at Springdale Fire Department why our trucks are yellow, you'll likely get the answer "because it's a Springdale tradition". That's because we've had yellow trucks for so long. Actually, it's a longer story than just "tradition". The first yellow Springdale fire truck was placed in service in 1972 by then Fire Chief Mickey Jackson. In the early 1960's Springdale began running white trucks, so Springdale was already different. Because safety was such a key concern in the department, we began to look at ways to make the trucks safer for the public and for the firefighters riding on them. In the early 1970's, studies were conducted among various fire related publications which revealed that red trucks were hard to see at night. White trucks were harder to see during the day, due to glare. Some departments were experimenting with yellow and lime green on their apparatus, which showed near equal effectiveness in visibility. In order to achieve greater visibility in both daytime and nighttime emergency driving, Chief Jackson decided to go with yellow. The actual color is "Chrome Yellow", which is similar to the color of school buses and heavy construction equipment. All of our lettering and striping is blue, except in areas decorated with gold leaf. Today, our newer apparatus features a combination of yellow and white. This feature allows even greater visibility during both daytime and nighttime emergency driving, and serves to differentiate our emergency vehicles a little more from school buses.
Over the past three years, Springdale Fire Department has placed in service newer apparatus and ambulances and refurbished Rescue 1. One of the new safety related features on the redesigned units is rollup compartment doors in place of swing out doors. These doors have the advantage of not creating a blind spot where emergency personnel can be hidden from the view of passing motorists on emergency scenes. Our newest "look" on Springdale Fire Department apparatus and ambulances includes a more artistic blend of Yellow, White and Blue to help make our units stand out in a bold way on the streets. This new paint scheme will be phased in over time, as new units are purchased, and the older units are retired from service. There is much talk both positive and negative about our yellow trucks. This is mainly because the fire service is so traditional.
Members from surrounding departments kid around and tell us to leave the trucks outside in sun, so they'll ripen and turn red. Well, we don't know exactly how long it takes for something to qualify as a tradition, but over 30 years should be long enough. You'll be seeing the combination of Yellow, White, Silver and Blue on Springdale Fire Department apparatus for many years to come.
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