Fire Chief William McDonald

Welcome to the San José Fire Department
The San José Fire Department (SJFD) is committed to serving the community by protecting life, property, and the environment through prevention and response. 

San José was founded in 1777 and is located in the South San Francisco Bay area within Santa Clara County, CA. It is the 10th largest city in the US and the 3rd largest in California. SJFD serves the city-proper and other Santa Clara County areas with a total population that exceeds 1 million.

Responding to approximately 74,000 calls for service each year (from 33 Fire Stations), SJFD is a high-volume, high-performance, full-service fire department. In terms of critical infrastructure, SJFD is the emergency service provider for a number of high-hazard occupancies, including an International Airport; 1 municipal airport; 7 major hospitals (including 3 trauma centers, and 7 emergency departments); the HP Pavilion, home of the NHL San Jose Sharks, (maximum occupancy 20,000); San José State University (the oldest public institution of higher education on the West Coast), student population of 31,906; three super regional malls; and 516 high-rise structures.

In addition, SJFD provides emergency services to various arts and cultural venues; multiple municipal storm and sanitary pump stations; Federal buildings and offices including a Federal Marshal’s Office, a Federal Courthouse and the Office of Immigration Services; Tank Farms, including Shell and Chevron; bio-medical research centers; and solar energy research and development centers. Consistent with the City’s brand “Capital of Silicon Valley” – San José includes extensive high-tech industry campuses such as Cisco Systems and IBM.