Sarasota County Fire Department protects 412 square miles with a population of approximately 350,000. Fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Operations operates 21 fire-rescue stations and seven EMS only stations. Sarasota County Fire Department employs over 500 Firefighter/EMT’s of which 236 are Firefighter/Paramedics, and are supported by 60 volunteer firefighters. Our daily minimum staffing for all four battalions is 109 firefighters. Our department responds to over 44,652 emergencies annually, of which, approximately 5,653 are fire related incidents.

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• Station 9 – 840 Apex Road
• Station 10 – 35 Vic Edwards Road
• Station 15 – 9102 Bloomfield Blvd.
• Station 16 – 5875 Hummingbird Ave.
• Station 17 – 298 N. Cattlemen Road

Fire Operations operates:

• 16 BLS Engines
• 25 Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances
• Six ALS engines
• Three ladder trucks
• One special operations vehicle
• Three tankers
• One fire boat
• Other emergency support vehicles

Fire Operations provides the following services:

• Fire suppression
• Fire mitigation
• Special operations
• Firefighter volunteers
• Training
• Fire prevention
• Public education

Fire Assessments

Fire Assessments provide funding for the Fire Department. Fire Assessments are based upon an Equivalent Billing Unit (EBU). 1 EBU equals 100 square feet. The minimum EBU is 10 EBU's.

Sarasota County Emergency Services provides both fire suppression and emergency medical services (EMS) to unincorporated Sarasota County and the City of Sarasota and only EMS to Laurel, Nokomis, the City of Venice and Englewood.

In the City of North Lauderdale case, the Florida Supreme Court determined that the benefit provided by EMS was to persons, not property and, thus, was not properly funded through a non-ad valorem assessment.