Colchester's line runs out into the water, and 23.97 of the
60.41 square miles inside it are water. The land figure is the
Census count; the total is the boundary VCGI draws.
Colchester Technical RescuePhotograph by T. Garvey, 2026-04-12
Home of Colchester Rescue since May 1984, and of the Technical Rescue Team and its five boats. Source
Street address
687 Blakely Rd
Town
Colchester
County
Chittenden County
ZIP
05446
Coordinates
44.53731, -73.20713
This station is not in the Vermont
E911 site file; we added it by hand, from the town's own records or a photograph of the building.
Spotted something wrong? Send a correction.
Colchester FD Mallets Bay Station
844 Church Rd
Photograph by Tom Garvey, 2026-04-12
On Church Road, where the Malletts Bay Fire Department housed the town's first ambulance squad until 1984. Source
Colchester's emergency services grew out of the Malletts Bay Fire Department, one of the first volunteer departments in the area. Its members started the town's ambulance squad in 1961; the town brought fire, rescue and technical rescue together as its own departments.
1955
Around the mid-1950s, the volunteer Malletts Bay Fire Department forms to cover the Malletts Bay part of town.
1961
Its association founds the Malletts Bay Rescue Squad, one of the first volunteer ambulance squads in the area.
1962
The squad's first call comes early in the year; 20 that year, 33 the next, in a town of under 5,000.
20 calls that year
1970
The town takes over funding the squad, as its own budget line.
1977
Renamed Colchester Rescue Squad, to make clear it covers the whole town.
1984
Rescue moves from the fire station on Church Road to Blakely Road, near the middle of town.
1990
Rescue starts a dive team with the police and harbormaster, the start of today's Technical Rescue Team (the team's own page dates it to 1989).
2020
Colchester Fire begins as a town department: career staff supporting mostly volunteer firefighters.
2023
Fourteen Technical Rescue members deploy for ten days, around the clock, in the July floods.
2025
Rescue answers 2,181 calls; the town proposes paying its fire volunteers on call.
2,181 calls that year
Calls
Rescue answers about twice as many calls as Fire, and a fifth of them are outside its own area, helping neighbouring towns. Both have grown since the town fire department began.
Colchester Rescue, calls by fiscal year
1.6kFY20
1.9kFY21
2.0kFY22
2.2kFY23
2.3kFY24
2.2kFY25
From each year's town report. In FY25, 449 calls (20%) were outside Colchester Rescue's primary area.
Colchester Fire, calls by fiscal year
975FY21
1.0kFY22
1.2kFY23
–FY24
1.1kFY25
From each year's town report, starting with the department's first year; the FY24 report gives no total.
What the state's list gets wrong
The state's E911 file lists seven fire stations in Colchester. Going to look found that three are not fire stations at all, so they are not on this map:
245 Main StNow a food shelf.
838 Church RdThe Colchester Water Department, Fire District No. 2 — a water utility named like a fire department.
282 Ethan Allen AveA small single-bay building with nothing fire-related around it.
Checked on the ground for fdvermont.org. Know of another? Tell us.
Colchester in Chittenden County. Every fire station in the county is marked —
5 here, 22 in neighbouring towns, which is
who turns out on a mutual aid call.
Boundaries and water from VCGI; fire district lines are not town lines, and
village districts and contracted coverage cross them. A town line runs out into
the lake, so the shoreline here is the water drawn over the boundary, not the
boundary itself.
Who answers where
Three town services answer different calls, and partners fill the gaps. Colchester Rescue covers the whole town except the Route 15 corridor, which St. Michael's Rescue covers.
Service
Answers
From
Colchester Fire
Fires, alarms, crashes, hazmat, marine and medical first response
Four stations across townIn partnership with St. Michael's College Fire & Rescue
Colchester Rescue
Ambulance, at paramedic level
687 Blakely RoadAlso answers 1 in 5 calls in neighbouring towns
Technical Rescue
Water, ice, rope, confined space and collapse rescue
687 Blakely RoadCalled across Vermont; part of the state's urban search and rescue team
Money
Fire, Rescue, Technical Rescue, Police and Dispatch together take 44% of Colchester's town budget. The town says it now has to pay its volunteers to keep stations staffed.
Fiscal year 2027, as proposed
Municipal services budget
$18,163,756
Public safety: police, fire, rescue, technical rescue, dispatch
$7,967,487
A 7.2% increase, including paid on-call staffing for the Fire Department.
What it costs the town when someone leaves
Police officer
$134,870
Career firefighter
$112,751
Volunteer EMS provider
$51,727
The town's own estimates of hiring, outfitting and a first year of training.
Working here
All three services rely on volunteers, and the town now pays fire volunteers on call. Rescue has a waiting list; Fire is recruiting all the time.
Fire: call firefighters, paid on call, with two hours of training a week
Rescue: volunteer and paid EMTs and paramedics; the squad runs its own CPR training centre
Technical Rescue: at least 24 training sessions a year; divers need advanced open water certification, 50 logged dives and dry-suit certification
In an emergency dial 911. These are business lines.
Burning
Vermont requires a Permit to Kindle Fire from the town’s Forest Fire Warden for anything larger than a campfire — except where snow covers the ground at the burn site, or the fire is at least 200 feet from anything that will carry flame. Wardens can suspend burning outright when fire danger is high. Who to ask locally is recorded department by department; where it is blank below, the fire department itself is the place to start.
For residents
Burn permitRequest a permit to burn online. Check the state's fire danger first.
911 house signOrder a reflective sign so crews can find your house, through Colchester Rescue.
CPR trainingCourses from Colchester Rescue's CPR Training Center.
Read in October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
Not recorded yet
Nothing is written up here for burn permits.
Not because it does not exist — because nobody has typed it in. If you know this
department, tell us and it goes on the record with its
source named.