Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña gave a seven-year update on the status of the Houston Fire and Emergency Medical Services departments during a Houston City Council meeting Oct. 25.

The overview

The presentation showed the growth of the department from 2017 to 2023 including comparisons of department staffing, recruitment, budget, equipment, and health and safety.
  • The current department headcount is 3,894.
  • Of that, 3,675 are classified personnel, 95 are cadets and 124 are civilian staff.
  • The department is 270 firefighters short of optimal staffing.
  • Approximately 1,300 cadets have been hired since 2017.
Cadets received a 25% pay raise in 2020, which Peña said was the first pay raise since 2001. Classified personnel also received an 18% pay raise spread out over three years from 2022-24. In 2022, the department also rolled out an incentive program to help recruit new firefighters.

More details

The city of Houston has invested over $155 million in new equipment and health and safety programs since 2017 including:
  • Replacing over 50% of the fleet in the last seven years
  • Adding five peak-time ambulance units
  • Purchasing high water evacuation vehicles, boats, jet skies and fire boats
  • Enhancing radios, computers, ballistic vests and helmets
  • Offering free cancer screenings and physicals to all firefighters
Peña said the current city administration has invested more taxpayer dollars into the fire department at one time than any other administration in recent history.


Cost to the city

Peña said in terms of the budget, the fire department has seen an increase of nearly 25% over the last six years.
  • The budget for fiscal year 2017-18 was $481.15 million.
  • The FY 2023-24 budget was approved at $593.31 million.
  • Supplementary funding, including donations and grants, added an additional $27.61 million to the department's budget.
What else

The city has been in contract negotiations with the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association—the organization that represents firefighters in collective bargaining talks—since 2017, and the two groups have been at an impasse over pay parity disputes. The city is currently engaged in a lawsuit challenging Senate Bill 736, authored by state senator and candidate for Houston mayor John Whitmire. The bill, if upheld by the court, would force the two sides to enter into an arbitration process that would result in a one-year contract.

Quote of note


"I want to thank [Mayor Sylvester Turner] for the support in addressing decadeslong challenges that we face when we accept this responsibility," Peña said. "We still have some challenges that we are dealing with, and certainly there is an urgency to the work we are doing, but I want to make clear that in spite of any narrative to the contrary, over the last seven years there have been significant investments into the Houston Fire Department."