OKC Fire Dept ambulance crews complete 1st month of service

-- Two ambulances are already in service, and two more are to be added into service soon

OKLAHOMA CITY — Following a full year of planning and implementation, the Oklahoma City Fire Department launched its new ambulance service at the end of June.

The move comes after multiple years of concern about shortages and lengthening response times for EMSA, Oklahoma’s primary ambulance and emergency transport operator. 

To mitigate those issues in the face of OKC’s rising resident numbers, now at 650,000 people for the City of OKC, city officials and leaders from OKCFD and EMSA settled on this new approach to better match similar cities across the nation, with the City approving the budget addition in July of last year.

“This is definitely new territory for us,” said Scott Douglas, Public Information Officer for OKC Fire. “There are larger metropolitan fire departments that operate their own ambulance service, and as our city grows over 700,000 in population, we just thought it’d be a great opportunity.”

Growing need

Though Oklahoma City Fire crews have long deployed with paramedics and medically trained staff on board their trucks as first responders, this is the first time that they’ll be operating their own ambulances to provide transport to hospitals when necessary.

The decision to implement ambulance service into the Fire Department was made as concerns have continued to grow over EMSA’s staffing and operating shortages, an issue that stretches back to the pandemic period of 2020 and 2021.

“COVID has just turned EMS upside down,” said former EMSA CEO James Winham at a press conference in August of 2021 specifically aimed at addressing staffing and personnel shortages.

EMSA
EMSA vehicle OKC (B.DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)

Even with past emergency orders and fast-tracked licensing for an increase in recruits, the city’s rapidly growing population, brutal summer heat, and the still waxing and waning COVID waves have continued to overwhelm EMSA’s capabilities.

As Fire Department crews already included paramedics, it made sense to approve them for their own ambulances to alleviate some of that strain on EMSA.

“We know EMSA is extremely busy with our metro area just growing,” Douglas said. “So this was just simply an opportunity to help supplement their service, and just another way to work together.”

Planning and training

Following the city’s budget approval for the new Fire ambulance service in July of 2023, Douglas said the department immediately set about planning and preparing.

“We spent the whole last year acquiring ambulances and getting all the equipment and all the supplies needed to fill them,” he said.

The department now has five ambulances, four of which will be operational throughout the city, with the fifth reserved for backup in the event of mechanical issues.

ambulances
All five of the Oklahoma City Fire Department’s new ambulances in June of 2024. (provided by the OKCFD)

The four operational bases for the new ambulances will be:

  • Fire Station 9 at SW 89th between S. Western and S. Penn.
  • Fire Station 21 at SW 29th and S. May
  • Fire Station 22 at W Britton and N Hudson off the Broadway Extension
  • Fire Station 34 at N Council near Northwest Expressway

The ambulances at stations 21 and 34 are already in operation as of June of this year, and the ones at stations 9 and 21 are expected to join operational status soon.

“We basically have them in the four quadrants of the city,” Douglas said. “And EMSA was part of that planning, too, letting us know where they really needed to be in the city.”

To staff the ambulances at those stations, the Fire Department launched the new OKCFD EMS Transport Academy, educating paramedic recruits on how to operate, maintain, and provide vital emergency care in the new vehicles.

The first graduating class saw 27 individuals newly certified for the service in April.

ambulances
The OKCFD’s inaugural EMS class visits the OKC Bombing Memorial shortly before their graduation. (provided by the OKCFD)

“It’s a really great program,” Douglas said. “We have a lot of great people interested and we’ve got more applications coming in every day.”

No change in service for residents

Though this is “new territory” for the OKCFD, the goal is to ensure that city residents don’t see any difference in the consistency of care between Fire and EMSA.

“EMSA is actually even the ones dispatching our units,” Douglas said. “So we really act the same as EMSA. They’re the state’s primary care agency and we’re really just assisting them.”

Thanks to statewide regulations regarding emergency medical care, any ambulance operator is required to adhere to the same standards.

“All the protocols and everything are signed off by the Medical Director’s office,” Douglas explained. “So the protocols are the same, your treatments the same, and the level of care is the same.”

That’s also true of the city’s EMSACare program, providing free ambulance service to participating city residents who pay an added $3.65 in their water bill each month.

“That’s probably been our number one question, actually,” said Douglas. “But no, whether it’s a Fire ambulance or EMSA that shows up for you, if you have the EMSACare, it’ll be the same for you. There won’t be any different price or anything for the OKCFD ambulance service.”


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Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.