The Truth About Public Safety, Part 8: Let’s Hear from Some Experts: NFPA

Statement on Consolidation of Fire and Police Departments
by National Fire Protection Association

Over a period of a good many years the idea of combining fire and police departments to reduce the costs of public protection services of municipalities had been proposed. At any one time during recent two or three decades there have been a few small communities experimenting with consolidation of fire and police departments in one form or another.
The staff of the National Fire Protection Association has studied fire departments in cities and towns of all sizes throughout the United States and Canada over a period of many years. We are convinced that there is no advantage, either from the point of view of economy or efficiency, in combining police and fire department functions. It is our considered opinion that a community needs both good police service and good fire service and that the combination of the two results in poorer police service and poorer fire service.

The well run police department and the well run fire department operate so that all of their personnel are fully occupied throughout their working hours in the many special functions that each of these departments is required to perform. The modern well run fire department in any community, large or small, keeps all of its personnel fully occupied with training procedures, fire prevention inspection procedures, maintenance, and other activities. Good fire fighting requires exceptional teamwork on the part of a fire company. Men with divided duties and responsibilities cannot operate as effectively as full time, trained firemen with responsibility at all times for fire fighting operations.

It should be remembered that a substantial majority of communities are not large enough to support fully paid fire departments. In such communities a fire department with part paid personnel or a purely volunteer fire department is in our opinion superior to a combined fire and police department.

It is our observation that when fire and police departments are combined the fire department suffers more than the police department and that the overall fire protection of the community is not at the proper level. We have never received convincing evidence that either the police protection or the fire protection in a community that has a combined fire and police department is giving as good service to the citizens of that community as that community would enjoy if it maintained proper, separate fire and police departments.