Bristol Fire Department

Bristol Fire Department traces its roots to March 1894, when the Bristol, Virginia city council approved a resolution creating a fire department, followed weeks later by seventeen citizens organizing as the Bristol Virginia Fire Company. The department moved from horse-drawn equipment to its first motorized apparatus in 1913, hired its first paid chief in 1937, and fully professionalized in 1963 when the last volunteer members left the roster. A 1974 city annexation that expanded Bristol to 11.53 square miles drove the addition of Stations 2 and 3, both of which remain in service today alongside the original downtown Station 1.

Today the department is an all-hazards agency of 45 members providing 24-hour fire suppression, fire investigation, code enforcement, and emergency management services citywide. It runs a fleet of three engines, a ladder truck, a tower truck, and two medic units, and has offered its own ALS ambulance transport since 2018. Bristol Fire also carries regional responsibilities beyond city limits: it has held a state hazardous-materials response contract since 1988 and stood up a heavy technical rescue team (HTR) in 2004, both serving the wider Bristol region.

The department is organized into three shifts (A, B, and C), each led by a battalion chief and staffed by a captain, and operates under Fire Chief D. Stacey Farley alongside Fire Marshal Eric Blevins and Operational Medical Director Dr. K.D. Hinshaw.

Bristol Fire Department does not run a separate recruitment site; firefighter and EMS openings are posted, when available, on the City of Bristol's centralized jobs portal alongside all other municipal positions. As of this review no fire/EMS vacancies were listed, so interested applicants should check the portal periodically or contact City Human Resources directly.