Standard Operating Guidelines

Listed below are our Department's Rules, Policies, and Standard Operating Guidelines.  Our SOG "book" is divided into 7 Sections.  We feel that it is important that the fire service share with and learn from other departments.  Please feel free to browse our information in order to help your department.

Note: In order to view these files you will need to have a PDF Reader such as Adobe Reader.    

The South Portland Fire Department has adopted the "Red-Yellow-Green" color coding system listed on the Firefighters Close Calls Website.

Department policies and SOG’s are coded using the red-yellow-green color coding system.  The color code is at the top right portion of the document. Examples of what would be in each category include:

• Red – includes emergency operations, emergency vehicle operations, civilian evacuation, roadway safety, MAYDAY, SCBA, RIT and related topics.  Essentially anything that during an emergency could get a firefighter or a civilian injured or killed.
• Yellow - these are the tasks that are done a lot (high risk and high frequency) and the ones that are high risk and low frequency but give us time to think.  Personnel policies including drug testing, sexual harassment.
• Green - these are the tasks that create a low opportunity for any of the above areas of concerns or exposure. Examples include the uniform or grooming policy, shift scheduling, or daily station duties.