Structure Fires
From the Marin City waterfront, the ranches of Hicks Valley, to historic downtown Point Reyes, Marin County Fire Department provides the highest level of structural fire protection. Highly trained personnel, state of the art apparatus, and enhanced water supply systems help minimize damage from structure fires in Marin. In areas known to have inadequate water supplies, water tenders are dispatched to the emergency scene.
Marin County Fire Department provides and receives "mutual aid," under agreement with all other Marin fire agencies. This ensures that the closest firefighting resource responds to your emergency, without regard to jurisdictional boundaries.
Wildland Fires
Marin County has a long history of major wildland fires. In 1929, Mill Valley suffered a devastating fire that destroyed 119 homes. Today, there are approximately 800-1000 homes within the footprint of that destructive blaze. The factors that add up to disaster in the wildland/urban interface are all present in Marin. Steep slopes, heavy vegetation, narrow roads - all it takes is dry weather and an ignition source to spell disaster.
Marin County Fire Department operates a fleet of state-of-the-art four wheel drive "Type III" wildland fire engines, a bulldozer and staffs a fire crew during the summer months. Seasonal firefighters augment professional firefighters to carry out functions such as hoselays, handline construction, and backfires during fire season, when fire danger is greatest.
Wildfire Evacuation Zones
In 2005, the Marin County Fire Service created the Mt. Tamalpais Mutual Threat Zone Plan (MTZ Plan) for wildland urban interface fires on and around Mt. Tamalpais. The goal of the MTZ Plan was to define roles, responsibilities, authorities and a framework for organization. Included in the MTZ Plan were maps for each defined area that included Structure Protection Zones and evacuation routes. In 2008 the MTZ Plan was expanded to include all of the wildland urban interface areas in the County of Marin with additional maps created for the expanded areas. The Structure Protection Zones were designated as Evacuation Zones in 2016 and have been pre-entered into Marin County’s notification system for rapid evacuation notification for people in potential evacuation zones. Please follow this link to view the MTZ Plan maps that include Evacuation Zones and Routes.