The Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD) provides firefighting and Emergency Medical Services

Emergency medical services

Emergency medical services are a type of emergency service dedicated to providing out-of-hospital acute medical care and/or transport to definitive care, to patients with illnesses and injuries which the patient, or the medical practitioner, believes constitutes a medical emergency...

 (EMS) within the City of Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, Pennsylvania.

One of the oldest fire departments in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the Philadelphia Fire Department began as the volunteer Union Fire Company

Union Fire Company

Union Fire Company, sometimes called Benjamin Franklin's Bucket Brigade, was a volunteer fire department formed in Philadelphia in 1736 with the assistance of Benjamin Franklin. The first fire fighting organization in Philadelphia, though followed within the year by the Fellowship Fire Company...

, established on December 7, 1736. After 134 years, the City Council decided the growing city needed a professional fire department, and passed a December 1870 ordinance to create one.

The PFD, like many large city fire departments throughout the county, also provides EMS to the city.