Impact fees are monies assessed to a new development by the Fire District pursuant to C.R.S. 29-20-1045 to help pay for the Fire District’s capital infrastructure needed to serve that development. As of January 1, 2018, the Fire District assesses such fees for projects located in unincorporated portions of Adams County under an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the Adams County Commissioners. If it is determined that an impact fee applies to your project, the fee structure for impact fees is as follows:

Single-family Homes/Residential Units = $557.00 per unit

2+ Residential Units = $436.00 per unit

Commercial/Office/Institutional Development = $0.38 per square foot of development

Industrial Development = $0.05 per square foot of development

All plans for projects located within unincorporated Adams County submitted to the Fire District for review must be accompanied by a completed Adams County Impact Fee form. If it determined by the Fire District that an impact fee applies to your project, the impact fee must be paid directly to the Fire District after the development permit is issued by Adams County, and before any building permits can be issued. The Fire District will promptly notify Adams County when the impact fee has been paid, after which time, building permits may be released pending approval by the Adams County Building Division. Impact fees are separate, and in addition to, any permit and plan review fees authorized to be charged by the Fire District under the fire code adopted by Adams County.

No. The Ambulance Membership Program is not an insurance policy, nor is it intended to be a substitute for medical insurance.

Citizens who live within North Metro Fire Rescue District boundaries are eligible. This includes the cities of Northglenn and Broomfield, and some areas of unincorporated Adams, Boulder, Jefferson and Weld Counties. If you are unsure whether you are within the District’s boundaries, please contact us.

Yes. All persons listed for membership (including all persons listed in family memberships) must have medical insurance or coverage under another medical benefit provider like Medicare.

No. Only permanent residents of the home, who are listed for membership on the application/renewal form, are eligible for benefits.

Yes. The balance not paid by your insurance or provider (co-pays, deductible, etc.) will be paid on your behalf by the Ambulance Membership Program to satisfy the full balance on your account up to a maximum of $1,500 per year per member.

Not usually. You will not be billed for any balance not paid by your insurance or provider unless you or a member of your family has exceeded the $1,500 annual maximum.

You may receive an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) or remittance advice from your insurance company or provider. It may indicate that you owe a portion of the claim. An EOB is not a bill and is only intended to advise you of the amount paid to North Metro Fire for the claim.

If not enrolled in our Ambulance Membership Program (AMP), you would be responsible for the amount in excess of the amount paid by your medical insurance provider, but with AMP, you owe nothing from your own pocket unless you exceed the maximum AMP benefit for that year.

For nearly every member, the answer is “yes.” On average, members who receive ambulance services incur approximately $800 per year of charges in excess of what their medical insurance or provider pays for ambulance services. Less than one percent of the members of the Ambulance Membership Program have ever had charges not paid by their medical insurance carrier in excess of $1,500 in one year.

The $1,500 annual limit starts at the time of the initial acceptance into the program, or for current members, on the date of the member’s annual renewal.

No. Every member and every person listed on an individual, family or senior membership starts over upon each annual renewal with a full $1,500 benefit.

No. Only 911 activated emergency transports are covered by your membership.

In September 2022, we launched a North Area dispatch system which will send the closest ambulance to your home when you call 911.  Depending on where you live, this could mean that a Thornton, Mountain View or Westminster ambulance responds to our fire district and transports you or your family member to the hospital.  If you receive a bill from Westminster, Mountain View or Thornton Fire for an ambulance transport within our fire district, please mail or drop off a copy at our headquarters so that the Ambulance Membership Program may take care of the balance due after insurance payment.

No. Any emergency transport from within the District’s boundaries is covered.

For instance, if you call 911 for emergency transport from the Flatiron Crossing Mall, the transport is covered. If you call 911 for emergency transport from the Westminster Mall, the transport would not be covered because North Metro Fire does not respond to calls in the City of Westminster.

Yes. All memberships expire on December 31. You will receive a notice indicating that your membership is set to expire in early December. You will have the opportunity to renew your membership before it expires. 

No. In fact, we don’t even expect you to remember to tell us you are part of the Ambulance Membership Program in the event of an emergency. We take care of everything for you!

A copy of your membership application is provided to all new enrollees for your records. If you need another copy of your membership information, we will be happy to provide it.

It is never too late to join the Ambulance Membership Program. Depending on when you sign up, your initial membership fee will be discounted accordingly. Then beginning in January of the coming year, your membership will be up for renewal at the annual fee rate. If you are interested in signing up for the program or want more information, please call our front desk at 303-452-9910. 

Call North Metro Fire at (303) 452-9910 to check the status of your membership.

For an individual, a membership costs $40. For a family where the primary member is 55 years or older, the cost is $45. For a family with members who are under the age of 55, the cost is $55. 

We try to support as many community-wide events as we can. However, our first responsibility is to respond to emergencies, so sometimes we can't make an event due to emergency call volume, firefighter training and other necessary emergency service duties. If you would like to request a fire engine to stop by your community event, please contact the public information officer at 303-252-3017 or via email sfarris@northmetrofire.org. You may also fill out an online request form to request a fire engine for your event. Please submit your request at least two weeks prior to your event. 

Please note, we do not send fire engines to promotional events for businesses, such as grand openings. However, in certain circumstances, we will partner with community businesses on safety education opportunities and send a fire engine to coincide with an educational event at a business. 

Typically, we schedule crews to attend an event for one to two hours maximum. Our fire engine crew and ambulance crew stay in service when attending community events. For this reason, there may be times when our crews must leave an event early to respond to an emergency call, or they may arrive late or not at all due to an emergency. Please understand we will do our best to attend your event, but providing the best emergency response to our citizens is our first priority. 

Usually by age 13 a child can sit in the front seat. However, the rule of thumb is that the child's height should be approximately 4 ft, 9 inches so that the seat belt rests correctly across the child's body for proper safety. The seat belt should rest across the pelvic area and not the stomach area.

For additional information on car seat safety, check out guidelines from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's website. 

While we have a limited number of short-term volunteer and community service opportunities during the year, as a rule we don't have long-term community service projects for youth looking to earn community service hours. If you have a specific community service project in mind that would involve our fire department, please contact the public information officer at 303-252-3017 or sfarris@northmetrofire.org. 

North Metro Fire is a full-service professional fire department and no longer offers volunteer firefighter opportunities. 

North Metro Fire accepts flags for retirement at their Headquarters building and fire stations throughout the year, but residents can also drop off their old flags at the Broomfield Veterans Memorial Museum and the Broomfield Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall. Each June around Flag Day, the fire district hosts an official Flag Retirement Ceremony with the help of the Broomfield Veterans Memorial Museum, Broomfield Police, the VFW and local boy and girl scouts. We encourage the public to join us in retiring some of the donated flags and honoring our nation's most regarded symbol.

You don't have to donate your flag to the fire district or other organizations in order to properly retire it. You simply need to cut the union of stars out from the stripes. Then the American flag is no longer considered to be a flag, and you can respectfully discard of the remnants in a receptacle. With the many synthetic flags used today, we no longer encourage residents to burn their flag remnants. Burning synthetic flags will expose you unnecessarily to harmful toxins released from the flag.  

North Metro Fire is able to accept monetary donations through the North Metro Fire Rescue District Community Foundation. Donations to the foundation are used to support fire and life safety programs in our community as well as the emergency financial needs of local first responders who are killed or seriously injured in the line of duty and their immediate families. If you would like to donate to our foundation, you may send a check made out to "NMFRD Community Foundation" to North Metro Fire's Headquarters at 101 Spader Way, Broomfield CO 80020. 

North Metro Fire doesn't accept in-kind donations of clothing, furniture, toys, etc. for the most part due to the lack of storage for such items. However, we do host a back-to-school drive and holiday toy drive during the year and will happily accept your new items to assist local families in need. 

North Metro Fire does not come to unlock a car door unless there is a child or pet locked inside the car. Otherwise, we advise residents to call their local locksmith to assist. 

They can be wrapped in newspaper and safely put in the trash as long as you remove the battery from the detector first. 

You can call your city or check their website for hazardous material roundup dates.

North Metro Fire does not provide this service. However, there are many companies available that inspect and recharge fire extinguishers. You can find these companies by performing an Internet search or by checking your local yellow pages. 

Open burning is the burning of materials in an outdoor location where the materials burned are not contained in an incinerator, fireplace, grill, fire pit or similar appliance with a chimney or smoke stack. Examples of open burning include farmers conducting agricultural burns on their land or someone burning a pep-rally style bonfire. 

Residents at single-family homes burning a small campfire-sized fire in a contained space in their yard are generally excluded from the open burning restrictions of the adopted fire code. However, on days with very high fire danger, North Metro Fire may recommend that even recreational fires be restricted out of precaution.  Additionally, the local sheriff and local public health department have the authority to issue burn restrictions, or even a fire ban, during periods of high fire danger or poor air quality.  A “RED FLAG WARNING” issued by the National Weather Service automatically triggers a complete fire ban in the affected areas.

General Open Burning
Homeowners and landowners, regardless of the size of their plot of land, who have cleared brush, trimmed trees and bushes, etc. for the purpose of maintaining their land, sometimes wish to dispose of the yard waste by burning. While this is possible, the fire district always recommends other methods of disposal, such as city or county tree-recycling programs, disposal in the regular trash, etc. Should a homeowner desire to dispose of yard waste in this manner, they must contact the fire district to obtain a burn permit, unless the fire is kept to the recreational fire size or disposed of in an outdoor fireplace.

Bonfires  If you are planning a fire pit that would have a stack of wood greater than 3 feet across and 2 feet high, then you will need a permit from North Metro Fire.  A bonfire must be constructed at least 50 feet from any combustibles.

Agricultural Burning
Agricultural burning is the open burning of vegetation by farmers for the purpose of preparing the soil for crop production, weed control, maintenance of water conveyance structures related to agricultural operations, and other agricultural cultivation purposes. Homeowners with larger plots of land that are maintaining their acreage are not considered agricultural. Agricultural burning requires a permit from North Metro Fire. 

More information about burn permits and how to apply for one

Yes. No matter what the conditions, you must obtain a burn permit from your local or state public health department and fire department before burning anything that exceeds the size of a recreational fire (3 feet wide and 2 feet high). Even with a burn permit, you must still check in with North Metro Fire personnel prior to burning to ensure conditions are safe to do so. 

When we are under Level 1 Fire Restrictions, bonfires and most agricultural burning are prohibited.

When we are under a Level 2 Fire Ban, all outdoor burning involving solid fuels (wood, leaves, charcoal, etc.) is prohibited, regardless of size.