The Department of Homeland Security is designated as the Sector-Specific Agency for the Emergency Services Sector. The sector provides a wide range of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery services during both day-to-day operations and incident response.

The Emergency Services Sector (ESS) is a community of millions of highly-skilled, trained personnel, along with the physical and cyber resources that provide a wide range of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery services during both day-to-day operations and incident response.

The ESS includes geographically-distributed facilities and equipment in both paid and volunteer capacities organized primarily at the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels of government.  These include city police departments and fire stations, county sheriff’s offices, Department of Defense police and fire departments, and town public works departments. The ESS also includes private sector resources, such as industrial fire departments, private security organizations, and private emergency medical services providers.