Springville is located in central Utah in the Provo-Orem metro area with a population just over 35,000. The combination department is staffed 24/7 with 5-6 personnel daily. The department has 18 full-time, 12 part-time and 36 volunteer firefighters. It is an all-risk fire and EMS department. We cover a call volume of approximately 2,200 calls annually out of one station. All members are certified at least to the hazmat operations level.

Hazmat operations are handled by the six crew members of Station 41 C-shift. Every shift has at least two hazmat technicians on duty.

You may remember this crew from a call they ran in October 2023. Station 41 C-shift, was dispatched to a reported residential structure fire. Reporting party was a passerby and unable to stop. The caller stated flames were visible shooting directly up into the air and was directly impinging an outside deck. Springville Fire and Rescue Engine 41 and Ambulance 41 arrived within 5 minutes. There was initially difficulty locating due to the caller not giving an exact address. Once located, crews found smoldering wooden appliances accompanied with a small, 20-pound (5-gallon) propane tank actively leaking. The assignment was downgraded from a structure fire to a gas leak.

Read more about that call: 3 Lessons from a Propane Incident

To stay ready the crew trains daily. Now, every shift has at least one probationary firefighter due to the recent large hire. C shift in particular is reviewing AAR videos on YouTube and applying lessons learned to our way of doing things. They have a large space behind the station for various drills.

And they are trying to more often get with their neighboring departments to the north and south to conduct multi-agency hazmat training.

Springville’s Type 1 engine can carry up to 4 crew members, while its ambulance can carry a crew of three. Additionally, they have a medium rescue that is jump staffed with the firefighter positions from the engine. All other apparatus are augmented by reserve firefighters.