Bet you don’t know these 10 facts about our Portland Airport Fire and Rescue:
- Provides emergency services for Portland International Airport every day, around-the-clock with a team of 43 (full-time equivalent).
- Handled about 2,200 calls in 2018—74 percent for emergency medical services.
- Served with a truck and team at three separate wildland fires last year: Substation Fire southeast of The Dalles, Ore.; Paradise Fire in California; and the Mendocino Complex Fire, the largest recorded fire complex in California history.
- Equipped with two new trucks weighing over 80,000 pounds each—20 times the weight of an average car—capable of delivering 697 horsepower and more than 70 miles per hour.
- Operates Rescue Boat 80—specially designed and equipped to provide aircraft water rescue, which last year responded to 118 general emergencies on the Columbia River.
- Implemented and still maintains the airport’s AED program, helping to boost Multnomah County’s cardiac arrest survival rate to twice as high as the national average.
- Started and still offers a voucher program, assisting passengers/patients in obtaining over-the-counter medications, or a meal, if they have no means to purchase themselves while in the airport.
- New hire candidates must take a written exam, submit a resume for grading, undergo a firefighter panel interview, be ranked into a civil service hiring list, and then interview with our Fire Chief Craig Funk.
- After a new hire candidate receives a contingent offer, there’s still a comprehensive background check, physical and psychological evaluation, attendance at Washington State Fire Academy for three months, aircraft rescue firefighter training in Dallas, and finally on-shift training at PDX.
- Backgrounds for the talented team range from product marketing at Nike to youth mentorship, and arena football to flying a Blackhawk helicopter in the U.S. Army.
