West Albany Fire Department proudly protects 5000 people living in an area of 3 square miles. We operate out of 2 stations that protect a primarily residential area. Our department is a public department whose members are on a volunteer status.

West Albany specializes in Hazardous Materials and is the response team for the Town of Colonie, located in Albany County, NY. The town is covered by twelve fire departments (six fire districts, four fire protection districts and two villages), working out of 17 stations, and it covers an area of 60 square miles (pop. 85,000 nights -- 250,000 days). We are staffed with six Hazardous Materials Specialists; 27 Technicians and twelve Operations Level personnel. For a hazardous materials incident we are able to respond with Squad 12, a 1995 Pierce non-walk-in squad, which carries an array of specialized Haz Mat equipment; HM-12, a Ford F-450 truck with a six man cab and utility body, utilized for carrying additional personnel, equipment and supplies; and Decon 12, a 26' fully enclosed heated/air conditioned decontamination trailer, which also may be used as a command post.

Albany County has inaugerated a county-wide Haz Mat response team. West Albany responds along with the teams from the Albany FD and Watervliet Arsenal FD to incidents outside our normal operating areas. Firematic duties are performed with all personnel available and our three pumpers. We have automatic mutual aid in place to bring us arial equipment, along with apparatus from the town's combination EMS department, when we are dispatched to an alarm of fire in a structure.