How Sioux Falls Fire Rescue keeps up with city’s growth, focuses on future needs

In between cleaning the Lincoln High School building as a custodian and maintaining the grounds at Howard Wood Field, Fernando Rivera kept applying for the job he really wanted: a firefighter at Sioux Falls Fire Rescue.

In early 2020, he prevailed. The native of Argentina, who came to the U.S. more than a decade ago not knowing any English, is now not only a firefighter at the city’s newest station in southeast Sioux Falls, but also a paramedic who regularly provides critical translating services to his team in the field.

“I was always grateful for the help I got from the community,” Rivera said, mentioning programs at LSS that taught him English.

“So I wanted to give back to the community.”

In many ways, Rivera reflects the growing community he serves — and the expanding team at Sioux Falls Fire Rescue to which he belongs.

This month’s graduating class of cadets is the most diverse, both in terms of background but also from outside Sioux Falls, that training officer Eric Engberg has seen in recent years.

“Which is pretty interesting and also really great,” said Engberg, a Sioux Falls native, who returned home after serving in the Army.

“Most of them have … heard about Sioux Falls first, how great Sioux Falls is, either from a friend or family, or they traveled through and visited, and most of them enjoyed Sioux Falls so much they wanted to work here. It’s pretty neat the mix of people we get here with all different experiences, but they all bring something to the table.”

Firefighter Jack Claussen brings his own example of unique skill sets. He’s among the rare city government employee to transfer from one department — in his case planning and development services — to Sioux Falls Fire Rescue.

The former zoning enforcement officer joined the department in 2019 after originally being drawn to it in high school during a ride-along and now is based at Central Fire Station downtown.

“I really like that it’s always something different. The best part, honestly, is that it changes all the time,” he said. “We’re growing each year, keeping up with the city that’s growing too.”

Within Rivera’s own Hispanic community, he has seen the change firsthand.

“When I joined the department, usually we didn’t run into many Spanish-speaking patients,” he said. “Lately, especially in the last couple of years, I’ve been helping the department and translating quite a bit as we see the city grow and call volume is growing as well. You run into more people … that don’t speak the language, and not just Spanish.”

The numbers bear that out, trending upward with the city’s population, Fire Chief Matt McAreavey said.

The increase, though, is largely in calls for emergency medical services.

Fire calls themselves “are relatively flat and are somewhat predictable,” he said, pointing to “a lot of effort into fire prevention and building code.”

That has shown itself in many forms, including how the department compares nationally. Sioux Falls Fire Rescue is accredited through the Commission on Fire Accreditation International and has an Insurance Services Office, or ISO, rating of Class 1 for fire protection, ranking it in the top 25 percent of more than 48,000 rated fire departments in the United States.

“Over 90 percent of our department has never been not accredited,” McAreavey said, noting that in the last accreditation cycle, “one commissioner specifically noted we only had seven recommendations for improvements, which is likely one of the lowest numbers of recommendations that came in this accreditation cycle.”

Key initiatives, culture drive planning

A firefighter’s day is anything but predictable, and training reflects it.

Engberg and his colleagues oversee a cadet training program that includes significant exposure to emergency medical services, which represent some of the department’s biggest call volume.

The structural firefighting training includes everything from efficiency and rescue skills to how to respond to car accidents, extrications, hazardous material calls and woodland urban grass and vegetation fires.

“The biggest thing for me when it comes to cadets, and what I try to get out of them and realize, is the whole reason why they’re here,” Engberg said.

“What they’re going to give back and what their purpose is. Our hiring process does a good job … getting individuals that care about people and want to help and have our core values — selfless service — so we really prod ourselves on that and try to portray that from ourselves onto the cadets that we care about the citizens and visitors to Sioux Falls, and we’re here for them.”

Once on the job, a firefighter like Claussen often works a 24-hour shift, beginning at 7 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, followed by two days off. A typical day often includes thorough checks on trucks and equipment, training and events, including public education. At all times, they’re on call for emergencies.

“We’re running calls and coming back and picking up where we left off,” he said. “It can vary from emergency medical services to responses for reported fire, so we’re turning into an all-hazards department.”

Fire Rescue has focused on three keys initiatives in recent years “to try and keep growth manageable,” McAreavey said.

That includes analyzing data for emergency medical calls to identify those that tend to need a full response from firefighters and those where it doesn’t make as much sense to send them “without negative impacting patients,” he said.

The department also monitors locations calling in false alarms to talk with property owners about what’s driving it and cut down on the unnecessary calls.

And finally, in partnership with Helpline Center’s 211 number, Fire Rescue has a referral program for patients following calls for lift assistance when people have fallen in their homes. From there, 211 can connect the patient with health services and community resources for home care.

“It’s been a very successful program,” McAreavey said, adding “if we weren’t being proactive on the nonemergency (calls), it would overwhelm the system.”

Still, the growth of the city is driving the need for emergency services to support it. The last new fire station opened in 2020.

Two more sites have been purchased for future stations, in the northeast and the southwest. The city’s current Capital Improvement Program includes designs for the 13th fire station in 2025, with a 2026 opening. There’s also a plan to rebuild the station at 41st Street and Marion Road in 2027-28 because that area of town has outgrown the location’s ability to serve it, McAreavey said.

Each new station adds about 15 full-time-equivalent employees. And there’s plenty of demand.

“I think we had 240 to 250 apply for our last test in 2023, and over 200 ended up taking the test, and we hired 15 off the list,” he said.

The newly opened Public Safety Training Campus is driving even more interest, McAreavey said.

“Every single tour we go through, they’re just really inspired for what the community did and provided,” he said.

For Rivera, whose days are spent responding to medical calls and any other emergency that arises in his service area, the role is one he doesn’t leave behind at the fire station door.

He’ll be off-duty at the grocery store, and others in the Hispanic community will ask about his role.

“I think they feel more identified by my presence. … They ask me if anybody can be a firefighter,” he said.

“Sometimes, people don’t know. They think you need medical training or something related in the field, and the truth is you don’t. They’ll train you on what you need to know to be a firefighter. … I love it. I cannot see myself doing anything else. I just love coming to work.”