Paid on call, with per-diem staff; no full- or part-time employees
Members
About 37
Calls
2,034 dispatched in 2025
Services
Fire protection and EMS first response
Chief
Charles Cole
The station
188 Sand Hill Rd
Photograph by T. Garvey, 2026-04-10
The town gives the station's address as 190 Sand Hill Road. It shares its site with the Water and Sewer building and the Highway Garage, and is not usually staffed: for urgent questions that aren't emergencies, call Essex Police dispatch on 802-878-8331. If a new station is built, this one would become space for Public Works. Source
The Town of Essex runs its fire department with paid on-call members and per-diem staff, and no full-time employees. In 2025 it was dispatched to 2,034 calls; the chief notes it is busier than many Vermont departments that do have full-time staff.
2022
The Village of Essex Junction separates from the Town of Essex and becomes a city, with its own fire department.
2023
The town buys 80–90 Upper Main Street for $3 million, using federal ARPA money, for a future municipal complex. Among the reasons: the existing fire station has become small and outdated.
2025
The Selectboard adopts a conceptual master plan for the site, with room for a new fire station, and in June picks a fire impact fee that leaves out new-station costs. The department is dispatched to 2,034 calls.
2,034 calls that year
2026
The fire budget proposed for fiscal 2027 is 10.9% lower than the year before, with capital equipment moved to the capital budget. Town Meeting's ballot carries advisory questions on designing the Upper Main Street site.
Essex Town in Chittenden County. Every fire station in the county is marked —
1 here, 26 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.
Working here
About 37 volunteer and per-diem members, many cross-trained as EMTs, hazmat technicians, police officers or nurses. New members with little experience are trained from the ground up.
Start with station duties, radio, hydrant hook-ups, tanker fills and hose; responsibilities grow with rank and certifications
The department provides all training and equipment
Employers in Essex are asked to let staff leave work to answer calls
Ask about joining or the cadet programme on 802-878-5308
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
Open houseEvery October, closing Fire Prevention Week: demos, the trucks and free food.
Read in October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
Not recorded yet
Nothing is written up here for burn permits, budget.
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.