The District covers a 30 square mile area near Stanford University in the San Francisco Bay Area for the communities of Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto, sections of Stanford University and unincorporated parts of Southern San Mateo County serving a greater community of 93,000 residents.  The District has seven stations that are strategically placed to provide the most efficient response times and responds to approximately 8,500 emergencies a year with about 60% of them being emergency medical incidents. The Fire Board oversees fire protection, policy, budget and staff related issues. The District is also the hosting agence for the California Task Force Three (CA-TF3) Urban Search and Rescue Team: This unit operates under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As the sponsoring agency, the Menlo Park Fire Protection District has the responsibility of managing the team, preparing the group to respond to any incident within California or the United States. CA-TF3 is a specially trained and equipped 80 person Urban Search and Rescue Task Force consisting of 18 participating agencies and 60 civilians.