Does the CIA have its own fire department?

I came across a posting recently seeking firefighters to be employed by the CIA and to perform what looks like traditional firefighting work. I went to the CIA’s own homepage and indeed found an entry in the CIA Careers section for “Firefighter.” Being a former CIA employee and current fire department battalion chief I was instantly intrigued and dug a little deeper. Was there really a CIA Fire organization? Did they have a fire station in the traditional sense and how similar are its duties to a traditional fire department?

Sadly, but not surprisingly, I could not find definitive answers to many of these questions, but I was able to parse out from declassified CIA memos and other online resources – as well as a healthy dose of extrapolation – that the CIA does appear to have its own fire department. Which makes sense, if you consider that the agency has a presence all over the greater DC area, and across the world, and likely has the same medical and fire-related emergencies at its facilities that any normal community experiences. One can also safely assume that the CIA does not want non-CIA personnel swarming its buildings at any time – including in an emergency.

According to the CIA’s firefighter job posting, a declassified document from 1963, and less reliably, a Reddit thread, CIA firefighters must have all of the normal qualifications that a typical career municipal firefighter usually has. These include fire and EMS certifications, training in the Incident Command System (ICS), and three years of experience in fire and EMS. The posting says that one can expect to “respond to and mitigate emergency incidents,” including medical emergencies, auto accidents, fires, and HazMat incidents. The posting also states that firefighters will work out of a fire station and work a 48-hour shift.

That is all pretty standard, bread-and-butter firefighter stuff and the same type of qualifications and conditions that someone applying somewhere else could expect.

Related: The CIA evolves: Technology and strategic declassification

From my time working at the agency, I don’t remember, nor did I definitively know of a “CIA Fire Department.” I left almost 15 years ago and if I were pressed for my best assessment, I would say there was not a CIA employee-staffed fire department during my time there. At least, there was not one at the main headquarters building in the McLean, Virginia. It seems that now, though, there might just be such an organization.

The CIA used to rely on local fire and medical resources to mitigate its emergencies. The declasified document from 1963 (which was declassified in 2006) discussed the agency’s reliance on the McLean, Virginia, Fire Department for ambulance service back at that time. The document describes how McLean FD was not legally obligated to provide the ambulance support, and that perhaps the CIA needed to enter into a binding contract with them that would guarantee an ambulance response when needed.

A Reddit user discussing the CIA firefighter job alluded to it being located at a CIA training facility in a different part of Virginia, which makes some sense. Maybe there is no CIA Fire Department at the main headquarters, but only at this satellite location.

What we do not know is if and when at some point the CIA decided to stop relying on local fire and EMS departments for its emergencies, and created its own fire department. It seems they likely did, given the career posting and other information, but like so many things CIA-related, the existence and extent of CIA Fire remains a mystery.

Feature Image: Firemen from the Fire Protection Division at the Stuttgart Army Airfield conducts joint training with Stuttgart Airport’s German fire department testing equipment and experiencing putting out propane fires at the Stuttgart Army Airfield, April 22, 2015. (US Army photo by Martin Greeson/Released)

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