Fire suppression is the process of controlling and/or extinguishing fires for the purpose of protecting people from injury, death, and/or property loss. The City of Carlsbad Fire Department is trained and equipped to respond to both structure and wildland fires.

Structure fire

A structure fire is defined as a fire involving the structural components of various residential or commercial buildings. However, a broader definition of structural fires includes: a fire originating in and burning any part or all of any building, shelter, automobile, aircraft, vessel or other structure.

The City of Carlsbad Fire Department's fire fighting strategy involves the following basic procedures:

• Arriving at the scene of the fire as rapidly as possible
• Assessing the nature of the fire by determining intensity/extent
• Determining type and abundance of fuel
• Assessing potential danger of entering the fire area
• Deciding most effective techniques for extinguishing the fire
• Locating and rescuing endangered persons
• Containing the fire by protecting adjacent areas
• Ventilating the fire area to allow for the escape of heat and toxic gases
• Extinguishing the fire

Wildland fire

A wildland fire is any uncontrolled, non-structure fire that occurs in the wilderness, wildland or bush. A wildfire differs from other fires by their extensive size; the speed at which they spread out from their original source; their ability to change direction unexpectedly; and to jump gaps, such as roads, rivers and fire breaks.

Large amounts of open space and wildland make the City of Carlsbad susceptible to brush fires year round. In the event of a large fire, Carlsbad has pre-existing mutual aid agreements with neighboring agencies to provide additional resources, which can include: personnel, equipment and firefighting aircraft.