PREPARING FOR WILDFIRES

  • FIRE DEPARTMENT PROGRAMS: PRIMARY PROTECTION AREA REPORTING

    The size of a department's Primary 911 Protection Area is acquired from government entities responsible for maintaining local map data, such as the County Office of Emergency Management, Appraisal District, or County Dispatch.

    If your fire department has had a change in the size of their Primary 911 Protection Area, please have your mapping entity provide Texas A&M Forest Service with a GIS compatible file (.shp or .gdb). To ensure accuracy, paper maps and maps submitted through other sources will not be accepted. Upon verification of the change by Texas A&M Forest Service, the fire department's information will be updated.

    Please read below for further information about the reporting process.


     + What is a Primary 911 Protection Area?
    Texas A&M Forest Service identifies a Primary 911 Protection Area as a designated area of land, within the state of Texas and identified by the county, that a singular recognized fire department responds to when toned out or dispatched to an incident.
     + Reporting a Change to the Primary 911 Protection Area

    If your fire department has recently had a change to the square mileage of its Primary 911 Protection Area, please coordinate with your mapping entity to record changes. Submit to maps@tfs.tamu.edu.

    » Begin by contacting the county official that maintains the geographic map data for your county. This department varies by county but is often the Office of Emergency Management, Appraisal District, County Dispatch, or in some cases, the County Fire Marshall. In other cases, your county may not maintain this data, but may send it to the Council of Governments (COG) or Regional Council. (A comprehensive list of COGs and other Councils may be found here.)

           › Remember, when claiming a change to your Primary 911 Protection Area, you are automatically claiming a change to at least one other fire department's Primary 911 Protection Area as well. It would be of great benefit to both fire departments to have documentation of the agreed upon change, prior to contacting the county or other government agency.

     

    Once the request to update your fire department's Primary 911 Protection Area is received, Texas A&M Forest Service will confirm the change with the appropriate entity for your county, then update our database to reflect the change.

     

    Any questions regarding this process can be directed to Texas A&M Forest Service:
    maps@tfs.tamu.edu or by phone: 979-458-6505
  • RELATED INFORMATION