Rural Metro Fire, founded in 1948, is an American private fire department that provides fire protection and emergency medical services to individual homeowners and commercial businesses in unincorporated locations throughout the United States, primarily under a subscription-based model. Municipalities and fire districts also contract Rural Metro to provide fire protection, prevention and emergency medical services.
History
The company was founded by Lou Witzeman, a newspaper reporter, after he witnessed a house fire near his home just outside the city limits of Phoenix, Arizona in 1948. There was no fire department established for the area; so Witzeman, feeling something had to be done, he purchased a fire engine and proceeded to godoor to door asking residents to subscribe to the new fire service by paying an annual membership fee. This was the origin of the Rural Fire Department, later renamed Rural Metro Fire Department. In the 1980s, the company expanded into ambulance service. Rural Metro Fire began listing shares in 1993 on the NASDAQ exchange under the stock symbol RURL. In 2015, Rural Metro Fire was purchased by , and senior management was released or merged into the parent corporation. In 2018, both American Medical Response and Rural Metro Fire became part of Global Medical Response.
Community fire protection services
Rural Metro Fire provides fire protection services primarily under a subscription-based model to individual homeowners and commercial property owners in unincorporated areas that do not offer municipal fire protection services in various areas of the United States. These areas are not included within municipal fire department boundaries or paid for by property taxes. It is the business model that Rural Metro Fire was founded upon. In other areas, municipalities contract with Rural Metro Fire partners to provide fire protection, prevention and emergency medical services. In the event that Rural Metro Fire Department provides services to non-subscribers either in or around the communities they serve, the property owner is billed after the incident to recoup costs associated with the emergency.
