St. Petersburg Emergency Services Guide

A 911 call from St. Petersburg brings the closest paramedic-staffed fire engine or rescue unit under the Pinellas County EMS system, followed by a Sunstar Paramedics ambulance for transport.

The county Safety and Emergency Services Department runs three operational divisions, one of them Regional 9-1-1 Communications (Pinellas County Safety and Emergency Services), and lists its Regional 9-1-1 Division at 10750 Ulmerton Road in Largo, 727-464-3835 (Pinellas County 9-1-1). Emergency response countywide comes from 18 fire departments housing 62 Advanced Life Support first responder units, and the closest responder is dispatched to each emergency regardless of city or district affiliation (Pinellas County EMS).

St. Petersburg Fire Rescue (SPFR) runs its first response from 13 fixed facilities with 14 fire companies, and its engines and rescue units are Advanced Life Support (ALS) units (SPFR operations). Pinellas County local fire stations are staffed by paramedics who give on-scene care, then Sunstar Paramedics continues care in the ambulance (Pinellas County EMS). Sunstar is the county's trade name for an ambulance service operated under contract by Paramedics Plus, and it handles all emergency and non-emergency ambulance transport in Pinellas County, including trips between hospitals.

Pinellas County emergency medical professionals respond to more than 230,000 emergency and non-emergency calls a year, and Sunstar ambulances carry as many as 188,000 patients to hospitals annually from a fleet of 70 vehicles (Pinellas County EMS). The same county page asks residents to call 9-1-1 whenever Emergency Medical Services are needed, and the St. Petersburg Police Department lists 911 as its emergency number too (St. Petersburg Police Department).

For anything that is not an emergency, St. Petersburg residents call the police non-emergency line, 727-893-7780, or the city and Pinellas County emergency management offices listed below.

The police numbers and the 1301 First Avenue North address come from the department's own site (St. Petersburg Police Department). The emergency management, information center and evacuation assistance numbers are the contacts printed on the city Hurricane Center page (City of St. Petersburg Hurricane Center), and Pinellas County Emergency Management lists the same 727-464-3800 number and the email [email protected] (Pinellas County Emergency Management).

A practical point from those pages: the city lists 727-464-4333 for Pinellas County hurricane information only during emergencies, while 727-893-7111 is the number it gives for questions to the city (Hurricane Center). Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the City of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County websites.

St. Petersburg Fire Rescue lists 14 numbered stations in 13 buildings, running from the Downtown Master Station at 455 8th Street South north to Station 14 in East High Point.

Fire Headquarters is at 400 Dr. M.L.K. Jr Street South. Stations 1 and 5 share the Downtown Master Station, the only multistory station in the city and the only one with fire poles; Station 5 carries the Hazmat team (SPFR stations). Each station is run by a fire captain, and all have kitchens and dormitories because crews work 24-hour shifts.

Water and bridges shape the map. Station 11 in Lakewood keeps Dive 11, Marine 11, Fire Boat 11 and Rapid Dive 11, covers the Skyway bridge and gives mutual aid to Manatee County (SPFR stations); personnel there include certified divers and USCG certified boat operators who train monthly (SPFR operations). At the north end, Station 13 in Gateway answers on the Howard Frankland and Gandy bridges, and Station 14 has covered the High Point area since St. Petersburg won that contract in 2013. Station 3 in Palmetto Park, at 3101 5th Avenue South, is described by the department as its busiest rescue and engine company.

St. Petersburg Fire Rescue reports 389 employees, 357 of them sworn, protecting about 300,000 people over 70 square miles in and around St. Petersburg, though its operations page still quotes 2018 call totals.

The sworn staff work three 24-hour rotating shifts that keep 13 ALS engines, four aerial trucks, ten ALS rescue units and two peak load rescue units in service around the clock (SPFR operations). The department describes itself as an all-hazards agency: fire suppression and prevention, hazardous materials mitigation, technical rescue, marine surface and dive rescue, tactical paramedic services and Advanced Life Support EMS. Its Standards of Cover objectives call for the first-due ALS unit to arrive within 8 minutes and 30 seconds total response time on 90% of priority EMS incidents, and the first-due unit within 7 minutes on 90% of priority structure fire incidents (SPFR operations).

SPFR currently holds a Class 1 Public Protection Classification from the Insurance Services Office, the top of a 1 to 10 scale, and the department notes that many U.S. property insurers use the PPC rating to calculate fire coverage premiums (SPFR ISO and accreditation). SPFR is also in its fourth consecutive accreditation cycle with the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, a peer-driven process whose self-assessment measures a department across ten categories with nearly 300 individual measures; accredited status lasts five years.

Readers comparing workloads should note the date on the numbers. As of October 2026, the SPFR operations page still states that the department answered more than 62,000 requests for emergency services in 2018, and that the fire suppression and specialty program answered 7,184 calls that year (SPFR operations); no newer total appears on that page. Change is visible on the ground instead: Fire Station No. 2, now at 3100 66th Street North with one engine, is being replaced by a new station under construction at 6560 26th Ave. N. (SPFR stations).

St. Petersburg relies on Alert Pinellas, the free Pinellas County system that sends emergency alerts by text, phone call and email, backed by local broadcast stations and the city's own channels.

Alert Pinellas sent 114 notifications in 2025 for severe weather, tornadoes, water service outages and other events, and more than 123,750 people had signed up as of August 2026 (Pinellas County Emergency Management). The county also offers the Ready Pinellas app and an online zone lookup for evacuation zones, which are based on storm surge risk.

For weather, the National Weather Service in Ruskin provides official flood threat recognition for the Tampa Bay region, including St. Petersburg, and issues advisories when heavy rainfall threatens to overwhelm drainage; the city names 100.7 WMTX-FM as the primary emergency alert station (City of St. Petersburg flooding page). During storms the city also posts updates on StPeteTV (Cable 615/15/20) and its social media accounts, and its Hurricane Center links to the Prepare, St. Pete map for checking an address's evacuation zone (Hurricane Center).

Which Pinellas County shelters open depends on the size and timing of each storm, so St. Petersburg residents check the county shelter list during an evacuation rather than assuming a shelter used before will open.

The county shelter list sorts sites as General, Special Needs or Pet Friendly and marks each Open, Closed or Full; not all shelters open in every situation, and which ones open depends on the size and timing of the storm (Pinellas County emergency shelters). The county does not release the names of people staying in shelters, and during an emergency activation it answers questions at its County Information Center, 727-464-4333.

For residents who cannot transport themselves to a shelter, the city points to the Evacuation Assistance Program. Registrants are taken to a general shelter, to the special needs shelter at John Hopkins Middle School, 701 16th St. S., St. Petersburg, or to a hospital or nursing home, but they must pre-register before a storm approaches by calling 727-551-3822 (City of St. Petersburg Hurricane Center). The Hurricane Center notes that much of St. Pete lies in evacuation zones, and Pinellas County Emergency Management says individuals of all ages with medical needs or who require transportation assistance may be eligible for its Special Needs Evacuation Program (Pinellas County Emergency Management).