The Palo Alto Fire Department (PAFD) will no longer serve the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory as the Menlo Park Fire Protection District (MPFPD) took over the responsibilities for providing fire and emergency assistance to SLAC last Tuesday.

MPFPD – located under two miles from the lab – has a three-year contract to provide fire services to the lab. PAFD previously operated Station 7 on site at SLAC near Building 44.

The new agreement also involves the Woodside Fire Protection District, which will provide supplemental emergency services to the lab when necessary.

Medical-aid response time from MPFPD is four minutes, which SLAC estimates to be two minutes longer than the current response from the on-site station. MPFPD is within the required six-minute fire call response time required by the National Fire Protection Association and the Department of Energy.

The change comes following a decrease in emergency calls at SLAC and an enhancement of the lab’s emergency detection and response system. SLAC currently places fewer than 100 calls per year, a sharp decrease from the more than 400 per year that was normal in the 1990s, according to a SLAC press release.

— Alice Phillips