The Walker Fire Protection Association (Walker Fire) was founded in 1967. Despite our having Prescott addresses, Walker Fire exists because our community is surrounded by Prescott National Forest creating the need for a separate jurisdiction.
In the earliest days, Walker Fire’s fleet consisted of a water tank hauled by pickup to fires on a trailer that the firefighters took turn keeping at their houses. Fast forward to today and thanks to grants, revenue from fire assignments outside our area and most importantly, donations from the community we have a very robust fleet consisting of two large engines, one medium sized engine, a brush truck, three water tenders (water trucks), an ambulance and squad unit.
With many years having more than 30 volunteers on our roster, we believe we are the largest volunteer fire department in the state of Arizona. Our roster is comprised of full-time residents who want to help the community, younger people looking to work with us as a steppingstone to a professional career which we welcome wholeheartedly and retired firefighters looking to maintain their hard-earned qualifications which we also welcome wholeheartedly.
We are always looking for new volunteers. There are some basic training requirements that we can help you obtain, a physical requirement (the pack test which you may have heard of) as well as ongoing training. Once trained, the hope is that volunteers will respond to calls when they are available to do so. As a fire department, safety is our highest priority, but we of course are here to serve the community and learn but hopefully have a lot of fun too.
We frequently work with other departments like Prescott Fire and Groom Creek and agencies like the Prescott National Forest. The level of cooperation between the departments and agencies in the Prescott area is outstanding, literally a national model, and part of what allows us as the only volunteer department in the mix to work well with the career firefighters is the quality of our training, our fleet and the relationships we maintain.
One of the great things about volunteering is that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. The best way to get started is to come to a couple of regular Saturday trainings on the first and third Saturdays of the month, at the station house, starting at 8am . Please feel free to contact us through walkerfire.org or our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/walkerfiredept/