Los Alamos Fire Department

Mission

Los Alamos Fire Department is honored to be entrusted with the safety and welfare of our community. We are dedicated and proud to provide exceptional services for the preservation of life, the environment, and property.

Vision

The Los Alamos 2024 vision is to continue to be widely known as an internationally accredited fire service agency that serves with PRIDE, while meeting our mission for our community.

Looking toward the futurity we seek, we will continue to strive for excellence with all of our pursuits. Our enhanced communications, both internal and external, will help us further connect with the people of Los Alamos, as well as become a more effective and efficient organization.

Acknowledging that we value professionalism, we will invest in our greatest asset, our members, through our initiative that focuses on improved leadership. This, along with comprehensive succession planning, will help move the department forward, sustaining and growing the quality that is the Los Alamos County Fire Department.

For us to demonstrate our readiness, our training initiative will bolster our ability to safely serve those who entrust us with the responsibility of their safety and welfare.

Dedication to those we serve and ourselves will be the mainstay in all that we do, while always personifying our traditions and calling by holding each other accountable for fulfilling our mission, living our values, accomplishing our goals, and bringing this vision to fruition.

Core Values

"We Walk With P.R.I.D.E"

Professionalism is the foundation of our general culture and guided by our commitment to public relations and external communications initiative ensuring an enhanced interaction with the community we are honored to serve.

Readiness is demonstrated by our training, technology, physical resources, and our commitment to continuous improvement.

Integrity is demonstrated by doing the right thing on and off duty for the benefit of our department and the community.

Dedication to the improvement of the community and the safety and well-being of our fellow team members.

Excellence is at the heart of our individual and department goals, recognizing that we are entrusted with the safety and welfare of our community.

LAFD was originally organized under the Manhattan Project in April 1943 and initially served the community with 7 civilian firefighters and 25 volunteer firefighters. Military services took over operations in September of that year and provided fire protection until 1989 when governance was transferred from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and the United States Atomic Energy Commission to the Incorporated County of Los Alamos (LAC).

Los Alamos County Fire Department Achieves International Accreditation for the Fifth Time

Accreditation—it’s not “just a plaque on the wall”. It’s a journey.

Someone once said that athletic activities would be a big waste of time if they didn’t keep score. No one really wants to watch a lot of physical effort between two groups of individuals unless they can determine who did the best job of playing the game. In our industry, the two opposite sides are the fire service effort as waged against the problem or accident. In the context of the accreditation concept, the CFAI has adopted the use of two different ways of keeping score. They are called baselines and benchmarks.

• A baseline is defined as a database from which something can be judged. It also refers to current and historical performance.

• A benchmark is defined as a standard from which something can be judged. It refers to future performance goals. Searching for industry best practice will help define superior or benchmark performance for which an organization can strive to meet.

Community Driven Strategic Plan(PDF, 11MB)

If we want to improve in our continuous drive for excellence, we must determine the organizational direction for excellence and develop a strategy for getting there. A properly developed strategic plan steers an organization from “business as usual” towards attainment of excellence by tackling areas needing improvement.

Community Risk Assessment—Standard of Cover

Matching resources to the risk using a methodology of identifying community hazards and risks, fire station distribution relative to the unique hazards, risks, population densities and service demand. The concentration of resources is established along with call type critical tasking, equipment needs and performance measures.

2020 CRA-SOC(PDF, 56MB)
2015 SOC(PDF, 23MB)
2010 SOC(PDF, 17MB)

Fire & Emergency Services Self-Assessment Manual

The primary purpose of an internal self-evaluation is to determine the current, or baseline performance of each of our services and programs. The second is to determine industry best practices and local expectations for the services and programs resulting in the development of plans for improvement. These plans must have a direct relationship to the department goals and objectives. The final reason is to provide a process by which to evaluate our services and programs in relation to improving the quality of the department and increasing the safety, effectiveness and efficiency of the agency.

What is "Accreditation"?

Accreditation is a comprehensive self-assessment and evaluation model that enables organizations to examine past, current, and future service levels and internal performance and compare them to industry best practices. This process leads to improved service delivery.

CPSE's Accreditation Program, administered by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) allows fire and emergency service agencies to compare their performance to industry best practices in order to:

• Determine community risk and safety needs and develop community-specific Standards of Cover.
• Evaluate the performance of the department.
• Establish a method for achieving continuous organizational improvement.

The CFAI accreditation process provides a well-defined, internationally-recognized benchmark system to measure the quality of fire and emergency services.

For more information on the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE) visit their webpage.

2022 LAFD Annual Report(PDF, 18MB)
2021 LAFD Annual Report
2020 LAFD Annual Report
2019 LAFD Annual Report
2018 LAFD Annual Report
2017 LAFD Annual Report(PDF, 16MB)
2016 LAFD Annual Report(PDF, 12MB)
2015 LAFD Annual Report(PDF, 4MB)
2014 LAFD Annual Report(PDF, 5MB)

The LAFD is internationally accredited through the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (Center for Public Safety Excellence), recognized for achieving excellence, providing customer service beyond expectation, and striving for continuous quality improvement. LAFD has a Public Protection Classification of Class 1 from the Insurance Services Office. Accordingly, we expect professionalism from each member.

Los Alamos Fire Department Organizational Structure(PDF, 305KB)
Los Alamos Fire Department Programmatic Structure(PDF, 90KB)
LAFD Photo Collage 2016(PDF, 2MB)