Staffed around the clock with an engine company of three and an advanced life support ambulance of two. Fleet: two engines, a pumper-tanker for areas without hydrants, a 105-foot ladder, ambulances, a command vehicle and an off-road UTV for patient rescue. Source
Williston started its own fire department in 1949, when a handful of local men offered their services after a serious fire. It now answers more than 2,600 calls a year, most of them medical, with career firefighter-paramedics backed by paid-on-call staff.
1949
Local volunteers, turned down at first by the Selectboard, organise the Williston Volunteer Fire Department; it answers five calls in its first year.
2016
More than 30 call staff on the roster.
2021
Call staff fall to an all-time low of eight, as demand rises; the town leans on career firefighter-paramedics.
1,722 calls that year
2023
Nearly 500 calls come in while the on-duty crew is already out on another.
2,324 calls that year
2025
2,681 calls, more than 750 of them overlapping; an American Heart Association Mission: Lifeline Gold award; a one-acre wildfire on Brownell Mountain needs a helicopter.
2,681 calls that year
Calls
Calls have risen 41% since 2021, and medical calls by 59% since 2020; two in three calls are medical. More and more arrive while the crew is already busy: over 750 overlapping calls in 2025.
Calls for service, by year
1.7kFY21
2.1kFY22
2.2kFY23
2.4kFY24
2.7k2025
From the incident tables in each year's town report: fiscal years to June, then calendar 2025 as the 2025 report gives it.
What the calls were, 2025
Medical and rescue1,802
Alarm activations464
Good intent, nothing found200
Hazardous conditions75
Service calls69
Fires67
Calendar 2025, by national incident class; 2,681 in all, 4 others.
Williston 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.
Money
Fire and EMS spending has grown from $2.4 million in fiscal 2022 to $4.4 million proposed for 2027. Ambulance billing is budgeted to bring back about $1 million.
Fiscal year 2027, as proposed
Fire and EMS, spending
$4,365,070
Ambulance billing, revenue
$980,000
From the town's proposed FY2027 operating budget.
Fire and EMS spending, by year
FY2027, proposed
$4,365,070
FY2026, approved
$3,957,925
FY2025, actual
$3,589,557
FY2024, actual
$3,352,382
FY2023, actual
$3,127,957
FY2022, actual
$2,380,326
Operating spending only; the 2021 ladder and engine purchase ($1.4 million) is on a bond to 2041.
Working here
Williston hires career firefighter-EMTs and paramedics and runs a paid-on-call staff of about ten. Its call-staff application is closed until spring 2027.
Call staff: experienced firefighters and EMS providers who fill in on busy days and big incidents
About a third of the department's medical providers are paramedics; the rest are Advanced EMTs and EMTs
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 permits onlineBrush piles need a same-day permit with a photo; campfires that meet the town's rules don't. 121 permits in 2025.
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.