Portable fire extinguishers can be purchased at a wide variety of retail stores. Home improvement centers, hardware stores, and fire safety equipment stores carry an adequate selection to choose from.

No, Hillsborough County Fire Fighters and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue do not accept household hazardous materials. The appropriate way to dispose of household hazardous materials can be found at this website.

No, Hillsborough County Fire Fighters and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue is not permitted to fill swimming pools.

A fire engine will sometimes arrive at an incident first because it is the closest emergency unit to the scene and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue is committed to getting help to your location as fast as possible. The County has 44 fire stations strategically located around the County. All fire engines are licensed as non-transporting ALS units. Our units respond to all medical calls involving life-threatening symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, chest pains, and severe bleeding. The crew members initiate treatment to stabilize patients and prepare them for transport to the nearest hospital facility.

To ensure the most effective service at the time of an emergency, our crews must remain in their designated response territory with their fire apparatus during their entire shift. Our crews work 24-hour shifts with no scheduled breaks, and meals are not provided by the County. All personnel on each shift must purchase their own food and prepare their own meals, so they may make a daily trip to the grocery store within their first due neighborhood to buy whatever they need to prepare their meals for the entire 24-hour shift.

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue crews do not have to be sitting in the fire station to be dispatched to a call. Since all Hillsborough County Fire Rescue units maintain constant radio contact with Emergency Dispatch Communications and the entire crew must always be together with their truck, they are always ready to respond to any emergency, regardless of their current location or non-emergency assignment. Very often, our firefighters and paramedics spend long periods of their day running calls, without returning to the station or stopping to eat, and they frequently have to return to the grocery store several times to finish purchasing food that they might not get a chance to cook during the shift.

No. Open burning of trash, tree trimmings or any other item is illegal in Hillsborough County and may carry a significant fine dependent upon the materials being burned. Residents can apply for an open burning permit by calling 813-744-5541 or going to the following link.

You can visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Child Safety Seat Inspection Station Locator website to find a location near you. Hillsborough County Fire Fighters and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue does not offer child safety seat installation and inspection program.

If you have a question in regards to your fire or emergency medical safety, smoke detectors, open burning or anything else that we may be able to assist you with, you are encouraged to call 813-272-6600.